Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Betrayed by her own husband for being a German resistance fighter, Orli has no one left in the world as she stumbles from the cattle truck onto the frostbitten grounds of Auschwitz. She has arrived expecting to be sentenced to certain death. Instead, as a trained nurse, she is assigned to work in the infirmary to assist Dr Josef Mengele.
Soon, Orli learns Mengele is known as the Angel of Death, and is the most feared man in Auschwitz. At his hands, thousands of healthy inmates are cruelly killed and experimented on: and Orli is expected to assist him. She realises that her resistance work is not over. From inside the infirmary, she will secretly try to save as many souls as she can.
Orli starts to smuggle medicine to the most desperate of patients. But when Mengele instructs her to find children, she knows it isn’t enough… she has to keep him away. With the help of her fellow nurses, Orli plans to fake a typhus outbreak.
But can Orli really fool one of the most powerful men in Auschwitz? And if Mengele discovers her plan, will the cost of saving others be her own life?
Book Challenge: #24in24 24 countries in 2024: Book Two - Poland
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of I Have to Save Them and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Wow, is all I can say. What an incredible read I Have to Save Them, the latest book from Ellie Midwood, turned out to be. I read this in two sittings as I was completely enthralled by the horrific story unfolding before my eyes. Just when you think you have read it all when it comes to World War Two historical fiction along comes a book that is such an eye opener into the horrors that took place at Auschwitz. I’ve read lots of books set in the camp but this tale inspired by the true story of Orli who earned the name of The Angel of Auschwitz shone a light on another aspect of the atrocities committed at the camp. It made me appreciate even more than I already did the sheer guts, determination and bravery of those captured and who remarkably lived to share their stories and make the world aware of the brutality and insurmountable evil that occurred under the reign of Hitler. Every page was packed full of emotion and Orli becomes a hero and a voice for those she tries to save and for those she thinks that she fails. Orli was a woman who risked everything to fight against evil when she could have just rolled over and given into the suffering and battering that she endured. But as the title suggests she had to save them and boy did she try her utmost best.
There are no wasted words or filler in chapters here. Right from the start we are taken to the heart of the story and once you get on the rollercoaster ride of Orli’s time in the camp, you hang on for dear life as do many of the characters. You don’t let go or draw breath until the final page and even then it is very much bittersweet but the ending was perfect even though I would have preferred something different but I admired how the author remained true to the real life story.
A brief prologue is set in Germany on January 1st 1962 and immediately the reader’s attention is caught as we see someone suffering a guilty conscience and has done so for many years. This person needs saving, love, care and rehabilitation and is offered this in spades but as Orli says herself ’She may have left Auschwitz’s walls, but the walls of Auschwitz have never left her. They have kept her prisoner day and night tormenting her with images of the past’. The opening was so powerful which gives a flash into Orli’s past but also a rude awakening as to her present physical and mental state of mind.
The story then moves to detail how Orli came to arrive in Auschwitz having been a political prisoner in Ravensbruck camp. She is German but was betrayed by her husband and even though her time is up and she should be allowed to go free she is deemed too much of a risk and is once again moved. She believes Ravensbruck to be bad but she has no idea as to what is in store for her as she arrives at the gates of hell. The chapters set at Auschwitz are interspersed with chapters set in 1962 and they are dark yet informative but have a sense of foreboding and alarm about them. Orli arrives at the camp and shares a bunk with a woman named Miriam and over her time she will meet many other steadfast and loyal women and they become like a sisterhood where they exist in ‘a world where human life had no value, where cruelty was the norm, and where death was a constant companion’. The woman live through a nightmare where suffering, torture, atrocities and adversity make up their daily existence. But Orli although physically weakened by her experiences, and this continues throughout the book as she puts the needs of others before her own, time and again she is determined that ‘she would fight, tooth and nail to survive. She would cling to hope no matter how dim, and she would hold onto her humanity, no matter how much they tried to take it from her’.
Having some experience nursing at the previous camp she soon volunteers for the infirmary which is seen as a privileged position. I don’t know how they could have thought this as what Orli witnesses is truly horrific and at no time throughout the entire book did the author spare the details which in turn conjured up gruesome and appalling images which are hard to shake and leave a lasting impression. But yet all the details needed to be there and just like so many couldn’t be saved the reader should not be spared but rather they help to confirm what Orli and so many others went through was barbaric and inhumane. Orli has such spirt and strength throughout the book but as the time passes and the situation deteriorates even further and the woman are sent to Birkenau where Orli works in the German women’s infirmary you did see her sense of self and the belief that she can get through this start to waver. She tries to save so many through ingenious methods but she questions whether it is all ultimately pointless as despite everything that they do they ultimately can’t save everyone.
Orli tries her utmost to retain some sort of semblance of humanity and dignity in the midst of unimaginable horror but this becomes increasingly more difficult with the arrival of Joseph Mengele – The Angel of Death. All the bravery, fierceness, protectiveness, selflessness and love that exists within Orli starts to waver and dissipate as she is forced to do unspeakable things as an aide to Mengele. What occurred here many will previously know but still to see it written down in plain sight and described so accurately and with great detail will make you sick to your stomach. When you think the depths of despair and depravity have been reached they once again plummet much further and at times you can barely believe what you are reading. You can’t comprehend that people could go through so much and emerge intact or unscathed mentally let alone physically. ’She was caught in a world of cruelty and inhumanity, a pawn in Mengele’s game of death’. That really sums up the situation that Orli was faced with, be complicit and go against all her morals and principles or else refrain from helping Mengele which in turn would only have led to her own death and therefore the work she was doing to help save others would be over.
‘It was a world of constant suffering, a world where death was an ever present spectre. But it was also a world where the human spirit refused to be extinguished, where hope preserved amidst the darkness’ Orli was that spirit, that hope that preserved but at what cost? I Have to Save Them was an astounding book that really packs an emotional punch. Yes, it’s a difficult read at times but Orli’s was a story that needed to be told and the manner in which it was was fantastic. Ellie Midwood should be proud of the book that she has written and the attention it will bring to a woman I did not know existed but now have such admiration and appreciation for.
No comments:
Post a Comment