I received this book to review from The Book Whisperer.

A Jewish family is promised a life that’s better than what they have in the ghetto if they work hard. They are not afraid of hard work and accept the offer. Arriving at the train station, they see their eldest daughter, who has been estranged from the family. Boarding begins. The parents are loaded onto a train car but the eldest daughter and twin daughters are not in the same car. The people are packed so tightly into the car that no one can sit down. No restroom, no food. As the train ride continues for hours, then days, people begin dying. The parents, Naomi and Herschel, are worried about their daughters. They hope that the girls are in the next car and that they will reunite at the end of the journey. At a stop, Herschel hears the German guards discussing the fate of those on the train. Where are they headed? Was the promise of a new life just a ploy?

This is the third book in Roberta Kagan’s WWII books The Auschwitz Twins series. In this book, she examines the Nazis’ lies to deceive the Jewish people and the incredible cruelty of Dr. Mengle. People heard that he was unusual and cruel but chose not to investigate his “experiments”. His horrific behavior in the name of medicine is truly sad. While we now know of the atrocities, we will never fully understand how such things could occur. There are some difficult and very sad circumstances that occur and can be emotionally charged. Kagan offers us the hope that the survival of atrocities such as these depended on the strength of the human spirit.

It is not necessary to read the two preceding books but Kagan’s characters are so endearing that you may choose to anyway.

My Rating: 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻/5

It breaks my heart to read of such horrors. I know how easy it is to condemn people because of this and I also know that if you weren’t there it is easy to criticize. At the time, world news wasn’t instantaneous as it is now. How would WWII have been different if people learned of concentration camps at the beginning of the war? Would the USA troops have deployed sooner? The ending of this book is fictitious but satisfying – too bad it wasn’t true.