Reviewed by Emma Crowley
At the imposing iron gates of Auschwitz, twenty-one-year-old Hodaya clings to her mama and papa, her little sister Bayla’s arms around her waist. But when Hodaya is sent one way and her parents the other, a plea to keep her sister safe is the last thing in her mother’s eyes. Hodaya makes a silent promise in return.
But Auschwitz is no place for a little girl, and keeping Bayla safe takes every ounce of Hodaya’s strength. She hates watching the spark in her little sister’s eyes dull, and as she hands over her daily rations of watery soup and stale bread to keep Bayla fed, she feels herself weakening by the second. But she vows to find a way out, even if it means sacrificing the young woman she once was.
Admiring the bravery of other prisoners’ revolts and imagining a world in which she joins in, Hodaya battles between her determination to save Bayla and mounting despair. But in the end, it’s the most unlikely person who reminds her to dare to hope: Alaric, a German soldier. As desperate hunger closes in, Alaric draws a parcel of warm food from a satchel and offers it to Hodaya – his expression guarded, blue eyes troubled, but his hand steady.
But can Hodaya trust a stranger, particularly a German? And as sickness takes hold of Bayla, is it already too late to keep her promise to keep Bayla safe—or will the last ounce of hope in her heart lead to an escape from the darkest of places?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of A Promise to my Sister to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
A Promise to my Sister is the very impressive debut novel from S.E. Rutledge. No matter how many historical fiction books that I read set during World War Two they never fail to have a deep and lasting impact on me. As they say, they may be gone but they will never be forgotten and this story is testament to this. This is a powerful, heart-breaking and emotive read. The heroine Hodaya becomes a character full of strength, resilience and courage despite her faith and trust in God wavering and being severely tested for all the degradation, humiliation and torture that she is put through.
A brief prologue set in Bochina, Poland, introduces us to a woman who has never spoken of the hardships that she has endured. All her memories and the events of the war have been smothered and she is desperate to move on and forget but she can’t. Who is this woman and what has happened to her? Even from the brief page or two of the prologue there is a dark and depressing atmosphere and a sense of so much that occurred that can’t be repaired or erased from memory. It entices the reader to read on and get stuck into the story proper.
The story then goes back in time to August 1939 and we meet Hodaya and her young sister Bayla and her parents who live in Poland. The family are Jewish and have struggled to get by but they are united by their strong love for one another. We gain an insight into life before the invasion of Poland by the Germans. We learn that Hodaya loves to paint but has quit school to work in a diner to earn some money for the family. Here is where she meets Naomi who becomes like a second sister to her. But the Germans are drawing ever near and when they reach the city and war is declared the lives of Hodaya and her family are irreplaceably changed forever. Bayla is only 11 when the order to leave the ghetto arrives and after enduring several years of rules and regulations all because of their religion the family are packed away along with Naomi on cattle trains bound for Auschwitz.
As a reader you know the unspeakable horrors that occurred there but for the characters it’s all new and you feel desperation, sadness and anger at what you know will be in store for them. Men and women are segregated and her parents are sent to the side that no one wishes to go to. Hodaya has to take on a new role as mother to Bayala who should not be with her in this particular section of the camp but as the title suggest she makes a promise to her sister and to those she could not save that she will do everything in her power to protect Bayla until she no longer has the chance to.
Throughout her experiences and the more suffering that ensues and the depths the human soul and physical body are plunged to the more Hodaya believes God has turned away from them. Who would let this happen to them? You wonder this yourself as this still happens today. This aspect of the book would make a great debate for a book club. You feel every bit of the misery, anguish, resentment and despondence that builds within Hodaya but she must battle on. Her ingenuity is to be admired despite her broken soul being tormented. The character of Alaric as mentioned in the blurb is a divisive one. Can one person fighting on behalf of Hitler view Jews as human as his leader does not? I would have loved even more exploration of his character as I felt we barely scratched the surface. But on reflection there couldn’t have been too much of a focus on him as he was a guard and Hodaya a prisoner and if he was found doing what he did to aid people than the worst fate would befall everyone despite all that they had already endured.
The first few chapters I found to be a bit all over the place in that the timeline jumped around as there were chapters detailing their lives in the weeks pre war, then chapters regarding the family’s transport to Auschwitz and amidst that chapters concerning the families incarceration in the ghetto. I would have preferred a straightforward timeline from the get-go rather from a point further on in the book as it made things feel disjointed and difficult for me to settle into the book. But when the timeline followed a more regular pattern this is where the book really took off for me. The writing just got better and better and rarely if ever does a book bring me to tears but towards the end I was fighting them back.
The imagery, the words used to convey sentiments and feelings regarding the situation were all excellent and so profound at times. I would have stopped and reread passages and taken further time to absorb them only for the fact that I was eager to keep reading to see what was going to happen. The author doesn’t just describe what Hodaya and Bayala went through at the camp she lives and breathes every moment of their time trapped behind the walls and brutal of a prison that should never have been established. It’s a real sensory read at times. The themes of ones faith and the capacity for survival when amidst excruciating conditions are hammered home through fantastic writing and the reader questions everything in the same manner as Hodaya.
With A Promise to my Sister I was expecting a typical read in the WW2 genre. I say typical because I read so much in this genre and at times I feel I have read it all can there be anything new brought to a genre that can become over saturated? But here the author has excelled herself and Hodaya and her bravery, determination and defiance shine through. Those many victims of Auschwitz and so many other camps will not be forgotten with storytelling and writing the likes of this and if this is what the author is writing for a debut I can only imagine what she will write in the future. A compelling, thought provoking read that I would highly recommend.
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