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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
How does one find out the truth about ones’ history when her father lies in Hospice care, and all he can do is say the name of a woman she does not know – and it is not her mother’s name?
And what happens when she discovers he has the tattoo of the concentration camp on his wrist – and she never knew he was ever in a concentration camp during the war?
And when she discovers these letters from another woman, not her mother, hidden amongst her father’s things?
Who was her father?
What was his past?
What was the past of her mother?
And was there more to discover about herself?
So many questions!
This is an interesting story, a different way of looking at another angle of another side of WWII history. Which I would rather not share – because quite frankly, it is key to the story/plot.
This, is a mystery of sorts.
And Miriam, the daughter, has a lot to unravel here – in her personal life, besides trying to figure out who her Dad was.
It is neatly told in different voices between Henryk (Dad) and Miriam.
Care to try it out? Find the answers on your own?
And what happens when she discovers he has the tattoo of the concentration camp on his wrist – and she never knew he was ever in a concentration camp during the war?
And when she discovers these letters from another woman, not her mother, hidden amongst her father’s things?
Who was her father?
What was his past?
What was the past of her mother?
And was there more to discover about herself?
So many questions!
This is an interesting story, a different way of looking at another angle of another side of WWII history. Which I would rather not share – because quite frankly, it is key to the story/plot.
This, is a mystery of sorts.
And Miriam, the daughter, has a lot to unravel here – in her personal life, besides trying to figure out who her Dad was.
It is neatly told in different voices between Henryk (Dad) and Miriam.
Care to try it out? Find the answers on your own?
Just so, so....
I kept trying to like this book, but just couldn’t. Wish there was more about Eva and Emilie and less about the affair ...
I kept trying to like this book, but just couldn’t. Wish there was more about Eva and Emilie and less about the affair ...
This was an ok book in terms of the storyline but the Rabbit Girls only played a brief role in the book and so the title is a bit misleading. There are a lot of topics covered here; abuse, infidelity, the Holocaust, and I'm not sure if the abuse storyline really contributed in a fundamental way. Without it, perhaps more details could have been placed on the other aspects of the book which were more interesting in my opinion.
While the book wasn’t bad, the juxtaposition of Frieda’s story in Ravensbrück with Miriam’s current situation trying to escape her abusive husband didn’t work for me. It seems that reading about the horrors that the rabbit girls faced with such tenacity supposedly helps Miriam stand up to her husband. Yet, I don’t care for even the suggestion that Miriam and Frieda’s stories were comparable, and Ravensbrück and the Rabbit Girls’ fates are too horrific to be treated as anything other than a “story” in its own right. 3 stars because the way Frieda’s story surfaces and her connection to Frieda are well thought out.
Good story, weaving a life in the days after the Berlin wall fell and lives during WWII. Story of courage and freedom.
What an interesting and well structured read. Set in Berlin 1989, just as the wall between the East and West was being torn down, the story is told through three different interwoven viewpoints.
One is the contemporary narrative of Miriam, who is carrying for her dying father Henryk and is shocked to find that he had been at Auschwitz, a fact she never knew. In this strand of the narrative we get the emotional impact of Miriam's response and her attempts to find out more, as well as the drama of her trying to escape from a coercive controlling husband.
Dipping in and out of Miriam's narrative, but tied to it in subtly clever ways, we get the internal thoughts of dying Henryk (he speaks only the odd word or phrase due to illness), who is reliving that part of his past that Miriam never knew.
Even more cleverly, the author has managed to include another voice, that of Frieda, Henryk's student and then lover, who was an inmate of Ravensbrück. Frieda has written a series of letters to Henryk during her internment, which have been concealed in the hem of her prisoner's uniform. Miriam stumbles upon this when searching Emile's, her dead mother, closet. At first, she thinks it was her mother's uniform, but on reading the letters understands they are from this mysterious Frieda (who her father repeatedly calls for).
Another clever structural device is that a portion of the letters are written in French (both Henryk and Frieda were fluent in it). Since Miriam cannot read French, she enlists the help of an East German woman she met at the library, Eva. Eva becomes instrumental in helping Miriam to put all the pieces of her life together and find strength amidst great adversity.
This is a very powerful book, as well as one that is extremely well crafted.
One is the contemporary narrative of Miriam, who is carrying for her dying father Henryk and is shocked to find that he had been at Auschwitz, a fact she never knew. In this strand of the narrative we get the emotional impact of Miriam's response and her attempts to find out more, as well as the drama of her trying to escape from a coercive controlling husband.
Dipping in and out of Miriam's narrative, but tied to it in subtly clever ways, we get the internal thoughts of dying Henryk (he speaks only the odd word or phrase due to illness), who is reliving that part of his past that Miriam never knew.
Even more cleverly, the author has managed to include another voice, that of Frieda, Henryk's student and then lover, who was an inmate of Ravensbrück. Frieda has written a series of letters to Henryk during her internment, which have been concealed in the hem of her prisoner's uniform. Miriam stumbles upon this when searching Emile's, her dead mother, closet. At first, she thinks it was her mother's uniform, but on reading the letters understands they are from this mysterious Frieda (who her father repeatedly calls for).
Another clever structural device is that a portion of the letters are written in French (both Henryk and Frieda were fluent in it). Since Miriam cannot read French, she enlists the help of an East German woman she met at the library, Eva. Eva becomes instrumental in helping Miriam to put all the pieces of her life together and find strength amidst great adversity.
This is a very powerful book, as well as one that is extremely well crafted.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory @Audible, audiobook, historic fiction/fiction. I am going to start with I loved this story, but it is a hard story. It deals with domestic abuse, and with Germany during WW2 and Concentration Camps and all the horrors that are associated with that. The story started in 1989 in Berlin and The Wall that has separated East and West falls, Miriam is caring for her dying Father Henryk. When he cries out for someone named Frieda and then Miriam discovers an Auschwitz tattoo under his watch strap. The past starts to unravel, searching for more clues Miriam finds an inmate uniform Ravensbrück women’s camp in her mothers things. Within its seams are dozens of letters to Henryk written by Frieda. They tell of the Rabbit Girls, and a love between Henryk and Frieda, they also tell of the friendship and love between the women. In the present time trying to nurse her father and find the truth of the story of the letters Miriam makes a new friend, newly arrived from the East. This friendship is put to the test when Miriam’s husband shows up and begins to terrorise Miriam even though she told him it was over and she has left him. Well worth reading/listening but be warned there is rape, domestic abuse of all kinds, still born and all that happened in the Concentration Camps which also includes pregnancy and the death of babies. Although these characters are not real the events are.
emotional
sad
medium-paced
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
I found the to-ing and fro-ing disjointed and annoying in this book. I had worked out where it was going part of the way through. I find that long, graphic letters supposedly scratched on scraps of paper with a piece of pencil from the concentration camp just too unbelievable. I didn't find myself warming to any of the characters either.