Als dit het debuut van Anna Ellory is, en dat wordt op diverse sites bevestigd, dan is het een indrukwekkend debuut. Prachtig en respectvol geschreven ondanks de vele vreselijke onderwerpen.
Miriam gaat naar haar vader toe, tegen de wil van haar dominerende man, als ze bericht krijgt dat haar vader op sterven ligt. Ze heeft haar vader al jaren niet gezien maar wil hem nu niet in de steek laten. Ze gaat bij hem wonen en verzorgt hem zo goed als ze kan. Miriam komt uit een gewelddadig huwelijk en heeft jaren lang onder dwang van haar man medicijnen geslikt waar ze suf en warrig door werd. Maar nu kan ze zich eindelijk weer een beetje zich zelf voelen. Als ze naar iets aan het zoeken is vindt ze in een kast een tas met daarin een uniform van een gevangene uit een concentratiekamp. In de zoom van het pak vindt ze enkele briefjes, geschreven op allerlei soorten papier en langzaam komt ze achter de waarheid over de oorlogsgeschiedenis van haar ouders. Het verhaal zit zo goed in elkaar en is echt mooi geschreven ondanks de sombere onderwerpen. ( )

This was an interesting WW2 story told across dual timelines. Miriam is caring for her dying father, Henrik, shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall. She’s also in an abusive marriage. When she discovers a prisoner’s uniform, and a collection of letters she realizes are from her father’s mistress from decades before, she sets out to unravel the story of what happened in the last days of the war. Poignant and tragic. Without getting into spoilers, this had some interesting historical tidbits, some unexpected twists, and was overall a nice debut that I enjoyed reading. I found Frieda’s perspective the most captivating overall.

Trigger Warnings: graphic concentration camp scenes, medical torture, graphic murder of an infant, domestic abuse, infidelity

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.
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An important Holocaust novel about the place inside that only belongs to us.

I have read so much. I was 12 the first time I read about the Holocaust. I have read and read. At one time I noped to read all of it. I wanted to know. What was the secret? What made me, me and them, them? Why did it happen? How did it happen? Why did it stop? Why does it continue? This book holds none of those answers --except the primary one. The answer to all are because a choice was made by someone. That's it. There is nothing more to the mystery.

I don't believe that there is just "one person" for us. The cultural idea of a soul mate damages so many people. Our soul mate is the one who makes a choice and the one whom we choose. We make that choice over and over, day after day, and that builds a soul. If "the one" seems to be someone else, we can whisk away the choices we made and they made by saying that we made the wrong choice. Equally, believing in"the one" allows us to keep choosing a person because if they are the one then there isn't anything else to look for and this is it or nothing is. We don't contemplate our choices and we lose the most exquisite parts or damage ourselves because there is "no choice." It is in making the choice that we live.

That's why we can forgive, love despite hate, build with hope alone or destroy through hate. Every choice building up or tearing down. Changing our choices can't erase pain. But to choose makes that damage change, too.

So choices make us who we are. They are never so dependent on what is inside us as when we believe we have no choice. Choosing to not act is still a choice.
I did not want to read this book. My heart and body hurt and are raw. I am faced with a choice every day whether to concentrate on that tiny speck or to turn into the darkness and abandon my responsibility and my happiness. I just did not want to see those choices, again and again, after ad nauseum. There are only so many ways to tell it. But I found a spark here and I am so grateful that I made the choice to see the beast again. Maybe the arc hasn't changed. Maybe the choices made in the last should just stay in the g-- d----d past. If only it would. Damage done in the past was detectable in the people of Germany in 1992. It felt present in parks and quiet country roads as much as the buildings and memorials. Healing was still beginning for the East and West then. It continues now. It is good.

I recommend this book. It examines important themes in a careful way. I thank the author for choosing to write another Holocaust novel even when she certainly saw how friutless it could be. I thank everyone who helps us make good, life-supporting choices. And I thank you for taking a long walk with me over a short distance.

Odd book, yet compelling. 'Rabbit Girls' were the females selected for bizarre experimental surgeries in concentration camps during WW2. ( think Auschwitz....Mengele...) However the book is more the story of a grown daughter ,digging into her dying fathers past, thru letters written to him years before. HER trial and tribulations seem to be more of the focus of the book....
For me, it was the letters that held my interest. ( )

"The Rabbit Girls" moves between timelines and narrators and opens with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Miriam has escaped from an abusive marriage and is caring for her dying father when she finds letters written to her father which have been hidden for decades. They describe the horrors that women faced in the Nazi concentrations camps during World War II, but they also reveal a deep love for Henryk, Miriam's father.

Whilst I enjoyed Miriam's story, although I thought her weaknesses were a bit over the top, it was Frieda's story that I found most compelling and her letter were heartbreaking. The barbaric treatment of the female inmates at Ravensbruck, the murder of newborns and the medical experiments had my stomach churning.

As I read this book I shared Miriam's, Frieda's and the rabbit girls' fear and pain and felt sorrow and disgust for how these women were treated. However, the inner strength they showed and the strong bonds that were formed between Frieda and the other women in the camp were truly moving and inspirational. I just wish the author had focused on them more as I cared deeply for Wanda, Bunny, Eugenia, Hani and little Stella.

"The Rabbit Girls" was a poignant historical novel about love, loss, friendship, pain and survival. ( )