Author: Heather Morris
Started: Aug. 1, 2021
Finished: Aug. 1, 2021
Thanks to Netgalley, Heather Morris, and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to receive an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Livia, Magda, and Cibi are as close as sisters can be. They have made a promise to their father before his death that they would always stay together and look after each other. That promise will be tested sooner than they know.
While Magda is hospitalized to try to keep her safe from the Nazis, the youngest sister Livi is ordered to "work for the Nazis" and Cibi goes with her, keeping her promise to her father. Their trip finds them at Auschwitz where they deal with the horrors of watching people die and learning how to get through the day-to-day of a concentration camp. Two years later, the sisters are reunited in Auschwitz and have each other to lean on during the worst times. As the Germans face a certain defeat, prisoners are taken on a death march where they escape before the Nazis can kill them.
After World War II has ended, the sisters are settled in Slovakia. They restart their lives there until Livi decides that she want to head to Israel to set up a new home. Magda makes the trip with her with Cibi and her family following shortly. The sisters end up married and raising their children in Israel. The epilogue shows all the sisters and their families in America and having a celebration where they remember their promise to their father knowing that they have kept it.
I have read Morris' other books in this series, The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka's Journey. While Lale, the tattooist, is noted briefly in this story he does not play a large part. This is a historical fiction with a touch of biography as the author is relaying actual events in the sister's lives. Heather Morris takes the time to devote a section to the book to let us know where the characters in the story ended up.