Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope
Written by Wendy Holden
Narrated by Elizabeth Wiley
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
In April 1945, Priska gives birth. She and her baby, along with Anka, Rachel, and the remaining inmates, are sent to Mauthausen concentration camp on a hellish train journey. Rachel gives birth on the train; Anka at the camp gates. All believe they will die-then a miracle occurs. The gas chamber runs out of Zyklon-B, and as the Allied troops near, the SS flee. Against all odds, the three mothers and their newborns survive their treacherous journey to freedom.
Wendy Holden
Wendy Holden was a journalist for eighteen years, including a decade at the Daily Telegraph. She is the author and coauthor of more than thirty books, among them several internationally acclaimed wartime biographies, plus the New York Times bestsellers A Lotus Grows in the Mud (with Goldie Hawn) and Lady Blue Eyes (with Frank Sinatra's widow, Barbara). She lives in Suffolk, England, with her husband and two dogs, and divides her time between the UK and the US.
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Reviews for Born Survivors
107 ratings11 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is the story of 3 mothers who gave birth to children while interred during the Holocaust, mostly on the move. It's just amazing that any of these children survived being born in a coal car in sub-zero weather when their mothers had no food for over 10 days and were sometimes almost comatose. It really was just the kindness of a stranger in each of their lives that allowed both mother and children to live. All the mothers gave birth within the same week while being transported from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to a facility in Germany near the end of the War. The determination of these women is heartening. This was a BB from the Reading Through Time group. My only complaint is that it introduced each woman and spent about 10 pages telling about conditions and procedures at camp when they arrived. It was almost identical for 30 pages--one gets the idea of roll call after once such explanation-3 times is not necessary. 477 pages
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Another eye witness story of the Holocaust. Well written, good narration. A must read if you want to learn more.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is the story of 3 mothers who gave birth to children while interred during the Holocaust, mostly on the move. It's just amazing that any of these children survived being born in a coal car in sub-zero weather when their mothers had no food for over 10 days and were sometimes almost comatose. It really was just the kindness of a stranger in each of their lives that allowed both mother and children to live. All the mothers gave birth within the same week while being transported from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to a facility in Germany near the end of the War. The determination of these women is heartening. This was a BB from the Reading Through Time group. My only complaint is that it introduced each woman and spent about 10 pages telling about conditions and procedures at camp when they arrived. It was almost identical for 30 pages--one gets the idea of roll call after once such explanation-3 times is not necessary. 477 pages
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heartbreaking and also heart lifting, Born Survivors follows three women through their harrowing journey through 3 different concentration camps toward the end of WWII. Not only must they live for themselves, they must also keep their unborn children safe and somehow, fed. Hard to read through my tears at times, it is beautifully written and a deep dive into the soul and what one is capable of when the will to live is stronger than those trying to break her.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Horrific true history. A little dry in the telling of the story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I really enjoyed this book. This one is a must read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Well... Wow... Hard to evaluate... The women's stories were good but the meshing of those stories didn't work and ended up kinda repeating chunks of the stories. Would have been better as the separate works - it just felt forced to try to mesh items that didn't fit together easily... And was really difficult to keep clearGood narrator
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Once you start reading this incredible book you simply cannot put it down---you are totally compelled to keep reading. It's a book that should be read by all the deniers that still exist out there.....and just considering what we are going through NOW in this world and have continued to go through---ask Samantha Power. It is beyond sickening to know what human beings can do to each other---horrific, and the question is why????? And how?? Is terror and cowardice most of the reason? Fear for oneself? This is an amazing book---awful, awful, awful to keep reading, even with the remarkable facts about what happened afterwards to these particular three women and their children....amazing...but out of the total loss it is unspeakable.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A great and compelling book about the struggles of 3 young women who gave birth while in German captivity. Gut wrenching at times, and spirit lifting at others, this book gives a rare female perspective of life in Jewish ghettos, labor camps, and death camps. A wonderful read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's 1944 and three Jewish women, Priska, Rachel and Anka, caught up in the Holocaust are sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Instinct tells them to deny they are pregnant when asked by brutal Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. The women don't know each other, but they share the experience of being worked and starved almost to death and enduring horrors we can't fully comprehend. By the time the babies are born, their fathers and many other's in their families have already been murdered and their mothers reduced to ‘walking skeletons’. By April 1945 the Allies are closing in and the prisoners are sent on a hellish seventeen-day train journey in open topped carriages in the snow, arriving at Mauthausen Concentration Camp on 29 April 1945. The babies are born during and just after arrival, saved only because the previous day the camp ran out of the Zyklon-B the Nazi's used to exterminate people. The miracle babies were the first ever camp inmates to be given names instead of numbers; Hana, Mark and Eva. The babies didn't find out about each other until 2008 when Hana and Eva discovered each other and then Mark in 2010. All only children, they now consider themselves siblings. The author has undertaken a tremendous amount of research and interviews to create the book. It is truly a remarkable story, new life in defiance of Hiltler's plan of extermination which saw the death of millions.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As with most books about the World War II concentration camps, this is a difficult book to read. However, this one is different because there is a good outcome for the three women highlighted in this book. Each of these three women, through good luck or miracle or whatever you want to call it, survived Auschwitz and were sent to Mauthausen were they survived until the war ended. All three women - Priska, Rachel, and Anka - were in their early pregnancies when they were first sent to Auschwitz and were wise enough not to share that information. Their stories were horrible and its amazing that they were able to deliver healthy babies. The three women never knew each other at the camps but the three children connected as adults and this is the story that they shared with Wendy Holden. The author did an amazing job of pulling the stories together and getting information on the three women's early history. All three women lost the majority of their families and their husbands in the camps but they each had a child who survived under unbelievable circumstances. Even though its a very heart breaking and sad story, there is a real sense of survival at the end of it. Its a must read book for people who like reading about this time period in history.