Summer Reading: Lilac Girls

The final selection (how did the summer go by so quickly?) on my summer reading list was Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly. I found this novel to be so compelling that I read almost all night because I just had to know how it ended. The story of Ravensbruck, a concentration camp for women during World War II where medical experiments were conducted on young Polish political prisoners, is told from the perspectives of three very different women. Caroline Ferriday is a New York socialite and former Broadway actress involved in many charities during the war. To mend her broken heart after a doomed love affair with a married man, she turns all of her attention to charity work and, after discovering the "Rabbits of Ravensbruck," she does everything she can to help them. Kasia Kuzmerick is a young Polish girl who is arrested for activities in the Resistance and is sent to Ravensbruck with her sister, mother, and best friend. She feels incredibly responsible for the fate of her loved ones and the anger she feels, as well as the physical disabilities resulting from the horrific experiments in the camp, make it difficult for her to adjust to life after the war. Herta Oberheuser is a trained doctor in Germany but, because she is a woman, she cannot find a position as a surgeon until she is hired at Ravensbruck. Initially, she has qualms about what she is asked to do but then rationalizes that these experiments might be saving lives of German soldiers. The lives of these three women converge to tell a remarkable story about adversity, resilience, and forgiveness. I found Caroline to be a fascinating character and I loved that she used her family's wealth and social position to help those affected by the war (she is a real-life hero of the war). I found Kasia to be a bit unsympathetic, especially in the second act, but I understood her despair and pain and that made her redemption all the more affecting. Herta was a difficult character for me (another real-life person) because she is portrayed very sympathetically at first and I wondered if Kelly was trying to absolve her for her part in the experiments. However, I came to understand her importance in the narrative in the final resolution. This novel, like most about World War II, is sometimes difficult to read but it is so well-written with a compelling story about characters that come to life off of the page. I highly recommend it!

Note:  Have you read Lilac Girls or any of the books on my summer reading list?  What did you think?