The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany

What makes this story unique which I will warn you there are a lot, is that it isn’t only about the story of these nine women. Parts of the story take us through step by step of the journey the nine went through but we also get to hear part of the story like the author is telling it to us. We get to hear parts of her experience learning about her great aunt and the other 8 women. So there is a family element to the story because the author is related to one of the women. We also get a detective element because Gwen had to do a lot of digging to find the names of some of the women, to learn about their past and their story, and to track down living relatives to hear their stories and experiences of these women. I appreciate that the author didn’t write this as too graphic of a novel but also included enough for us to grasp the horrors of what they went through in the camps and even after. There were a lot of things mentioned that I had never known before. Like the author mentions in an interview she had, the stories of women were kind of put to the background and so hearing of what they went through just opened up a whole new realization of the tragic way that the Nazis treated other human beings. But I also appreciate that the author includes in the story how not all Germans were bad. Many had no idea what was happening. Some were also treated very badly and tried to help the people imprisoned. I think this is an important thing to remember as well when thinking and reading about the holocaust. And you can tell with this book that it took a lot of research and time for the author to gather the information to write this story and tell it in a way that won’t just depress us about what happened but also provide a sense of hope and joy in how they found companionship with each other. This story is one of great courage, endurance, love, not only one filled with challenges and struggles. I have nothing against their story as it took a lot of courage for Gwen’s aunt to tell her story and I am sure it will be very inspirational for all who hear it, the only reason I give it a four-star is that the narrative was a little jumpy. It went back and forth. It started by telling the background of one of the girls and telling up to how they started their escape then it would jump back and tell the story of another one of the women before picking up with their escape. I have to say this isn’t an action-packed book. It will take time to progress as a lot of it is just explaining the story of the nine women. So it is different than what I typically read. I mostly read actioned packed and faced-paced, but I really liked this change of speed and taking the time to hear about the nine women, the author's journey to discover their stories, and of their family. Another problem, with no fault to the book was that I had a hard time keeping straight who each person was and I still don't know. There were just a lot of people to keep track but it was nice that at the beginning of the book there is a list of the nine women and who each one was, but I couldn't refer back to it when listening, which is a downside of the audio version. It was also nice to hear at the ending of the book how life turned out for the women to the best that the author could find. Most storied end with them finding freedom but this one continues to tell you their life after and shines a light on the fact that they couldn’t just move on from what they had experienced. It stayed with them and affected them for the rest of their lives. .

Thank you to the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany is a highly=detailed, excellently-researched historical account about nine women who were resistant fighters and who escaped a labor camp near the end of World War II. The author Gwen Strauss is a descendant of Helene, one of the nine women. The care and attention that the author uses in crafting the narratives for all nine women is evident throughout the book. The book also includes historical photos that illuminate the conditions that the women went through in order to survive and escape Nazi Germany. Here is an excerpt from an opening chapter that illustrates the terror that the band of women went through: (This is not a spoiler, because it is from an opening chapter.) "In any case, the marchers had passed so many corpses along the way that this heap of women at the bottom of a ditch probably looked just like another pile of dead bodies. ... They climbed out of the ditch and collapsed in the field. They lay there looking up at the sky, clasping hands and laughing hysterically. They had done it! They had escaped! But now they were in the middle of Saxony, facing frightened and hostile German villagers, angry feeling officers of Germany's Schutz-staffel (SS) the Russian army, and Allied bombers overhead. The Americans were somewhere nearby, they hoped. They had to find the Americans or die trying." After I read that scene, I had to keep reading to find out how the nine women had ended up there, as well as what happened next in their story. Would they reach the Americans safely? Would they get caught by the SS or by other Germans? Would they survive the journey to safety? These are all questions I was furiously thinking about as I continued reading about the women's exciting stories. Overall, The Nine is a well-researched, exciting work of historical nonfiction set in World War II. It will appeal to readers who want to learn more about resistance fighters during World War II. Although this is a clearly a wonderful book, I took off one star just because I don't typically enjoy nonfiction. This is not the book's fault, of course. I'm just explaining why it wasn't a five-star book for me personally. If you are a fan of historical nonfiction about heroic women, I highly recommend that you check out The Nine when it comes out in May!

Wow, this book. It gave me all the feelings. I'm amazed and devastated, inspired and horrified, heart-warmed and heartbroken all at the same time. The Nine tells the true story of the author's great aunt Helene Podliasky, who led a group of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a ten day journey across the front lines of WWII to escape from Germany and return to Paris. The women endured horrifying conditions and were working at an armaments factory in HASAG Leipzig as the end of the war approached. To keep prisoners from falling into Allied hands, the camp was evacuated into a death march across Germany. The story opens during the death march when the women realized that there were no guards nearby. They took their chance and fled. From here the story moves among the women who made up The Nine. In each chapter, the focus is on one of the woman and we learn about her background, how she joined the resistance and how she came to be imprisoned by the Germans. I thought this was a very clever and engaging approach to telling their story. This keeps the story fresh and interesting and fills in the context for the situations they encountered. The author also includes herself in the story, how her research unfolded and incorporating her discoveries along this journey. The story itself very moving and powerful. The bravery and ingenuity of these women was amazing. While reading this book, I never stopped being amazed. Amazed by the bravery of these women, what they were willing to risk to be part of the Resistance, what they endured, what they were willing to risk for each other and for their freedom. The author, Gwen Strauss, noted that her family was aware that her great-aunt Hele was highly decorated for her service in the war, but, like many families, her service was just something they never talked about. It felt taboo. On a lunch date with Gwen in 2002, Helene mentioned that she had escaped the Nazis with eight other women. Astounded, Gwen asked to record an interview to get the full story. Helene didn't see the point of sharing her story but agreed to do so regardless. Gwen assumed that there would be more conversations in the future to fill in the details, but the follow up visits never occurred. Later, when she began to write the Helene's story, she began to discover other books, interviews, articles and documentaries that were by or about some of the other women who made up The Nine, or about other women who were in the same camps. Gwen drew upon and compiled all of this research, collaborating with other researchers where possible, visiting archives to dig deeper, and traveling throughout Germany and Europe to walk some of the same ground as the Nine. I found the result to be amazing, that so much of their story could be tracked and recreated. It's really a feat of tenacious and tireless research to have identified the women and found their histories so long after the fact. Strauss is trained and educated as a poet - not as a writer of non-fiction or a historical researcher. She undertook this project outside of her comfort zone and I think she hit a home run. Her passion for unearthing and sharing the stories of these brave women shines through the pages. This is despite forces in history working to hide and obscure the facts. And those facts are sometimes difficult to read. These are important stories for us to tell, for us to hear, and for us to remember.