Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Poland: Day in and day out, fifteen-year-old Jordanna holds tight to the hands of her siblings as they’re forced into back-breaking labor. They’ve been transported to a camp for Polish orphans, but at night, Jordanna weeps silently, clinging to the hope that they’re not actually orphans. That when they finally escape, their mother Dalia will be waiting with open arms. But the only thing she knows for sure is that to survive, she cannot let the cruel guards discover they are not just Polish, they are Jewish…
Auschwitz: More than a hundred miles away, Dalia shivers in her tattered striped uniform, wary eyes darting around for any sign of trouble. She’s seen other women lost to the bitter sting of the frozen air and the brutal regime and she can’t let it be her. Every day, Dalia prays that her husband will find a way to save their children. But when another prisoner approaches her about joining their secret resistance, Dalia decides to take rescuing her family into her own hands—despite the terrible danger it puts her in…
The only thing keeping Jordanna and Dalia’s spirits alive in the darkest of places is the hope that they will one day be reunited. But will Dalia fight her way out to cradle her daughter in her arms once more—or will she die trying?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Family Behind the Walls to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Family Behind the Walls by Shari J. Ryan follows the Bergmann family during WW2. Dalia, Leo and their children Max, Jordanna and Lilli along with adoptive son of sorts Alfie are torn apart thanks to the restrictions, rules and atrocities forced upon the Jewish population by Hitler. The book opens with an impressive and hard hitting introduction when the infamous firestorm of the German city of Hamburg occurs in July 1943. Escaping from their home amidst the chaos of an air raid the family find themselves sheltering in a bunker. Up until this point they have escaped deportation and persecution although the laws enacted by Hitler have deeply affected their everyday lives. As they cower in terror with other families, German soldiers arrive and take Leo and Dalia to tend to those who have been injured and to gather bodies. The family had immunity from deportation as although he was Polish and Jewish he had fought for the Germans in the Great War and is recognised for his achievements and services to Germany. But all that doesn’t matter now and four years into the war things are about to be irrevocably changed forever.
The opening chapters detailing the firestorm and its repercussions were incredible and harrowing. Such awful images were created in my mind through the descriptions and they will stay with you long after you have read the final page. No gruesome detail was spared and it really hit home how Hamburg was destroyed on that night and how so many people lost their lives. This set the reader up for what I hoped was going to be a great book after such a fantastic start. Yes, it was a good read overall but I found parts of the story lagged and their seemed to be some repetition and I felt as if I had previously read stories that were similar and perhaps I wasn’t as shocked at some aspects as I ought to have been. But the themes that were developed were explored well and you do come to root for the family and hope that they can all be reunited.
The chapters alternate between Jordanna and Dalia and once I knew this was the pattern of the book I soon settled into its rhythm. Although at times I wish the pace would have been a bit quicker particularly in the first half as I felt after the intense, explosive start there was a lull until the different camps were reached. After being separated from her children, Dalia soon finds herself alone in Hamburg as Leo went to help people but did not return. For Dalia, family is everything and she has a strong, loving and unbreakable bond with Leo. She has raised her children well offering sound advice and encouragement to Jordanna being the eldest daughter and Jordanna heeds these nuggets of wisdom throughout the testing times ahead.
Dalia soon finds herself rounded up by the Nazi’s and put on a cattle train. But in her heart and soul all she wants is to be reunited with her husband and children. This motivation is what keeps her pressing on through what can only be classed as an endurance test as she reaches the gates of Auschwitz. I thought to have escaped incarceration for so long into the war and then for this to happen to her and her family was beyond cruel. All this for one man’s aim to pursue German racial purity. Such brutality and anti-semitic feeling should never have been allowed to gather such force.
All of us are familiar with what occurred in Auschwitz and Shari J. Ryan did an excellent job of describing the conditions and the rules and regulations the prisoners had to live by. Hard labour, exhaustion, starvation and inhumane living conditions made up a new existence for Dalia. Every innocent human being was denied basic simple human freedoms. Dalia clings to is hope and this becomes a very important word for every character. Look for hope even if it’s something that you can’t see because it will keep you strong in the most desperate of times. For that is all she has and if she relinquishes her grip on this feeling she will simply crumble and become another victim of the regime.
Dalia had nursed during the Great War and so is sent to work in the infirmary. The author provided the reader with brilliant descriptions of the conditions there Dalia and her fellow nurses had to battle with. With so few resources available to them they did their best to tend to those in the last throes of life with few surviving the diseases that were rife throughout the camp. There is one particular incident involving Dalia and her work at the infirmary and it became very personal for her. This was heart-breaking to read and I was hoping for an alternative outcome but realistically what occurred probably would have happened at the time. But it only spurred her on to become involved in resistance work. One line in particular really struck a chord with me where it was said that people who have nothing can still give so much of themselves and that is what Dalia does as she continues to cling to hope and the belief that she can survive and persist through this desolation and hard labour. She was strong, brave and courageous and above all else everything she did and persevered through was all for her family.
The walls of the title are what harbour the family from finding each other. Emotional as well as physical walls. Emerging from the bunker Max, Jordanna, Lilli and Alfie find themselves looking at a scene straight out of hell and soon they too are taken away for deportation. Alfie is suffering from hearing loss as a result of being too close to a bomb when it exploded and over the course of the book himself and Jordanna rely on the Morse code as a form of communication as taught to them by Leo. The children soon find themselves in Little Auschwitz in a ghetto for juvenile criminals and orphaned children in the Polish city of Lodz. Max, the eldest, is separated from them and a further separation occurs between Alfie and the two girls. Jordanna has to become the mother figure to 8 year old Lilli. A role she wishes she didn’t have to undertake but she would do anything for her siblings and similar to Dalia all she wants is to search for her parents. The children are put working at physical labour. Tasks which they should not have to do. Their childhood and innocence is being stripped from them as war has meant their usual daily carefree lives are but a distant memory.
The details of the Lodz ghetto were realistic and hard hitting and the deprivation the children were suffering was clear for the reader to see as they go through such distressing and appalling experiences. Jordanna toils away in the potato fields where she meets Alfie once again and another element to the story began to unravel. I’ll have to be honest what occurred, I know it was necessary to allow further plots to develop in the later half of the book but it just seemed too unrealistic to me that this could happen. Yes, it’s what every prisoner in a concentration camp would have wanted to happen but did it really? If it did, I doubt there was a very high success rate. But said strand of which I am purposefully being vague about opened different opportunities for the children’s story to develop. It was heart-breaking and I wished there could have been another alternative. I felt Jordanna, Alfie and Lilli’s story petered off before coming to the surface in the final few chapters. The months passed and I felt there were times when the author didn’t know what to do with them but then as the Soviets started to make their way through Germany things changed again. There is a scene near to the end where Lilli although still very young gives an impassioned speech which had me realising she was perhaps the best character in the book. Her words were incredible and she said what so many others could not.It was only a page or two but it certainly made an impact.
The Family Behind the Walls is a powerful read and despite some of the issues I have mentioned up above I am glad that I read it and the story of the Bergmann’s has given me a deeper appreciation, understanding and compassion for all those who lost their lives. The epilogue was brilliant and those last few words well that really says it all.
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