Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Escobar (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harpermusebooks for the review copy of Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Escobar.

What would you do as a mother if your husband and children were taken away to a concentration camp?  Helen is a nurse of German heritage in Germany in 1943 when the Nazis come for her family. Her husband is a “gypsy” (now known as Romani) therefore her husband and children are taken away.  Helen goes with them to Auschwitz.  She fights to keep her children alive in the camp.  Will Helen and her family survive?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This historical fiction novel showed an impossible choice that was made by a real woman during WWII.  This was a heart wrenching tale that will stay with me long after I turned the last page.

·       I had never thought about Auschwitz being divided into different “groups” such as gypsies (Romani), communists, Jews, and further into ethnicities such as German gypsies (Romani), Russian gypsies (Romani), etc.

·       To control disease, the doctor would kill entire barracks whether everyone was sick or not.  It’s hard to fathom the slaughter of so many people.

·       To me as I’m sure it is to many people, I automatically think about the Jewish people when I thin about the Holocaust, not the gypsies (Romani).  This group was also heavily persecuted by the Nazis.  Approximately 20,000 gypsies (Romani) were killed in Auschwitz.  I was intrigued to read that the gypsies (Romani) fought back when the Nazis showed up in May 1944 to exterminate them and were able to hold off their execution at that time.

·       It’s also strange to me that the Nazis would let Helen run a nursery school for the children of the camp.  They treated them humanely only to experiment on them or kill them.  The depth of depravity is horrifying.

·       Speaking of horrifying, the villain in this novel is Dr. Mengele, who was the real-life doctor in Auschwitz who famously experimented on twins.  He is a complicated and evil individual.  Helen and the reader never can understand what makes this man tick.

·       The novel is Helen’s story and at times is written as first person diary entries that she makes. 

·       The end of the novel has a “historical clarifications” section on the real history of the events in the novel.  There are also thought-provoking discussion questions.

·       This novel seemed so much more important to me knowing that it was the true story of people who were in the Holocaust.  Helen and her five children deserve to be remembered.  It made me ponder all of the other souls whose stories deserve to be told.

Favorite quotes:

“As long as I’ve got an ounce of humanity left in me, I’m going to risk my life for others.”

“I had to love even my enemies.  It was the only way to keep from becoming a monster myself.”

“My family is here.  I can’t leave without them.  I’m a mother, Herr Dokter.  You all wage your wars for grand ideals, you defend your fanatical beliefs about liberty, country, and race, but mothers only have one homeland, one ideal, one race:  our family.  I will go with my children wherever fate takes them.”

Overall, Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Escobar is a heart wrenching WWII historical fiction novel that will stay with you long after you’ve read the last page.

What is your favorite WWII novel or nonfiction book?