Lilac Girls

by Martha Hall Kelly
July 29-Aug 20, 2017

It's been two weeks since I finished Lilac Girls and I still can't get it out of my mind. While most of the WWII books I've read are simply historical fiction, this one includes real people and historical figures to authenticate the horrific tale. I didn't realize this at first. I assumed that the experiments performed at Ravensbrück were factual, and that this was the single, female-only concentration camp, but it wasn't until I started to research these experiments that I learned that Gerta Oberheuser was, in fact, real. A real monster who convinced herself she just needed the work.

“It only hurts you to hold on to the hate.”

There isn't much more to be said about the horrors of Ravensbrück; at least from a book synopsis standpoint. But what intrigued me about this story was that the war only encompassed the first third of the book, the rest was the aftermath and how the survivors struggled every day to move on. I was fascinated by this perspective and appreciated this difference from all the other WWII novels I've read. I will say again, especially when people wonder how one can read books about such heinous events in history, that we need to continue to speak and learn about the past, lest it repeat itself.

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