Reviewed by Emma Crowley
The cattle car is dark, except for the light filtering through the boarded windows. There are too many of us to count, crushed up against each other. The air is stuffy, carrying the scent of our terror—none of us know what awaits us when this train stops. I cling onto Mama’s hand and Nora, my twin sister, clutches Papa’s.
After what feels like forever, the train stops. We spill out of the carriage, the sun blinding us after being imprisoned in darkness for so long. There are people everywhere, soldiers separating children from their parents, husbands from wives.
We’re in some sort of queue, and a man in a dark-green SS uniform walks by, glancing at everyone he passes. “Twins, twins,” he shouts. My heart falls into the pit of my stomach.
“Right here,” says Mama, hesitation in her voice. “My daughters are twins.” My eyes widen, and Nora trembles. Papa tries to tell Mama to be quiet, but it’s too late.
The Nazi catches sight of us. “Twins,” he says again, pausing to inspect Nora and me. “Yes, you are, aren’t you? You two are going to come along with me.”
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Stolen Twins to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Stolen Twins by Shari J.Ryan had a name change after I read this heart breaking and incredibly moving story. Previously, it was titled We Only Had Each Other which I do think suits it better but despite the name change for whatever reason this occurred, I still found this to be a book full of raw emotion, loss, horror and incredible courage in the face of the utmost wrongs enforced upon the innocent. The story is centred around twins Arina and Nora who live in Hungary and how their lives were torn apart by the war. The chapters alternate between each twin and within each chapter the story moves back and forth between the past and the present. Admittedly, I found this swapping between timelines within a chapter instead of separate chapters quite disconcerting and frankly confusing at first and therefore it took me some time to get into the rhythm of the story. But when I did I became fully engrossed in the plight of two sisters with a deep bond who were separated through the actions of the cruel Dr. Josef Mengele, otherwise known as the Angel of Death.
The story opens in May 1946 as Arina is on board a ship going to America. For more than a year she had been nothing but a number and a statistic but now she is an orphan, not knowing the whereabouts or final outcome of her twin and parents. Arina has been through many horrors and as she is still a minor with several months to go before she turns 18 she is sent to an orphanage in Chicago. From the outset the reader can see that both guilt and anger eat away at Arina. Guilt that she didn’t do enough to stay with her twin and that she has to remain in a world without the person she loved the most. She questions what gives one person the right to life over another? I thought this quote from Arina summed up perfectly what many people decades later still think. ‘I’m still left wondering how an army of people can wake up one day and decide to hate everyone who doesn’t mirror their blonde hair and blue-eyed genetic profile. There are cruel human beings who won’t accept anyone different from themselves’. She is consumed by anger that the entire process and the devastation and abject barbarism occurred in the first place resulting in the loss of her family. The twins may have had different opinions and personalities but no one can deny the bond they shared deep down that one man was determined to break.
Arina had had a happy childhood with her twin sister Nora and parents Danica and Henrik living in the town of Debrecen in Hunagry but being Jewish now the Germans have invaded their lives are under threat. Innocently, they say ’We have no choice but to be brave and believe everything will be ok’. But when the Nazi’s take all Jews from their homes and send them to ghettos and work camps they know things have taken a serious turn and there probably will be no way back to their normal reality. Following time in a ghetto, they are shipped to Auschwitz and separated from their parents.
Nora and Arina are selected by Mengele and taken to a separate scientific laboratory. Measurements are taken and experiments begin. A nightmare which will always be unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. I still can’t comprehend how a doctor was allowed to study and dissect humans for his own personal gain and to solve his questions regarding genetic anomalies. These were innocent people the twins story just being a drop in the ocean as to the hundreds of pure and honest people whose lives were eradicated. They were nothing only lab rats and playthings for the amusement of others and because of Nora’s imperfection she paid the ultimate price of bring mutilated and savaged. Arina hides her real emotions deep down and puts on a front of sorts to those who try to help her. Initially she refuses to engage in the therapy sessions that were organised for her. Miss.Blum tries to get her to open up which eventually she does in short outbursts of rage and the story that unfolds is one of bestiality and bloodthirstiness filled with unlawful inhumane practices.
I appreciated how the author did not spare any ghastly details which in turn conjured up the most heinous of images in my head whilst reading. They weren’t added for shock value or to add dramatics to the story. Instead, they needed to be there to make the reader conscious of the experiments carried out by Mengele if they had not been so before. At some points I simply couldn’t fathom what I was reading and how things were carried out with such a blasé attitude with no regard for the final outcome or due care given to those experimented on. This was certainly an eye opener of a read for me in more ways than one.
Loneliness is a theme that features heavily throughout the book and perhaps for Arina this is the strongest emotion she feels. Loneliness isn’t a curable disease. It’s a life sentence’. Dale who is in his late teens and works doing odd jobs at the orphanage feels a connection to Arina and tries to alleviate some of this but as the questions remain in her mind and erode away at her she can’t fully connect with him or try and look forward to a future when she is old enough to leave the orphanage. She needs solid answers but will she ever get them?
I thought it was brilliant how we also got Nora’s side of the story and at the same time we knew how Arina felt in relation to what occurred at the camp and in the weeks and months that followed liberation. The guilt and self-blame become a huge burden for her and to be honest I could really see why she held that viewpoint and in a way maybe she had to endure these emotions for a long time in order to even to begin to process what she had been through. As for Nora, due to her having a stutter, is the twin whom even more cruel and deprived experiments are carried out upon leaving her incapacitated. I felt Nora removed herself from what was going on. Not physically but almost spiritually that she was like a spirit floating above her body seeing what was happening but not fully realising it was her. She isn’t filled with rage and anger as Arina is but I think Arina is so gung ho like this because she wished it had happened to her instead of she being the one separated and left alone without more detailed inflictions. Nora is the character you really feel the utmost sympathy for although sympathy is really too light of a word for the emotions she stirs within you. I won’t say too much more regarding Nora as her story is inspiring and you should read this heart wrenching yet important book for yourself.
Once I got used to the back and forth within the chapters I found the book to be well paced and very well plotted. I particularly liked the last quarter of the book which could have descended into things becoming too far fetched and just too coincidental but in my mind they didn’t. I was eager to see how things would unfold as you find yourself shouting at the pages and characters for certain things to happen that you are desperate to occur. I liked how we got a good solid ending with a few twists and turns. No doubt about it The Stolen Twins, was an eye opening read and certainly a worthy addition to the World War Two historical fiction genre.
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