Berlin, 1989. As the wall between East and West falls, Miriam Winter cares for her dying father, Henryk. When he cries out for someone named Frieda – and Miriam discovers an Auschwitz tattoo hidden under his watch strap – Henryk’s secret history begins to unravel.
Searching for more clues of her father’s past, Miriam finds an inmate uniform from the Ravensbrück women’s camp concealed among her … among her mother’s things. Within its seams are dozens of letters to Henryk written by Frieda. The letters reveal the disturbing truth about the ‘Rabbit Girls’, young women experimented on at the camp. And amid their tales of sacrifice and endurance, Miriam pieces together a love story that has been hidden away in Henryk’s heart for almost fifty years.
Inspired by these extraordinary women, Miriam strives to break through the walls she has built around herself. Because even in the darkest of times, hope can survive.
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The main characters are Miriam and her father Henryk. The book is set in Germany around the time the Berlin Wall is being torn down. Miriam has escaped a rather warped, controlling, relationship with her husband Axel. Miriam has heard her father is dying and has literally fled her marriage where she is subject to domestic violence on a daily basis. Miriam knows its only a matter of time before Axel turns up to retrieve her and unleash his temper and violence on her for having the audacity to run away from him. Miriam is determined to nurse her father in the family home, she never got the chance to even visit her mother when she became ill years earlier. Axel almost prevented her from attending the funeral at all. In fact, she missed part of the funeral only arriving at the wake afterwards and briefly speaking to her father. So, when she is notified that her father, Henryk is actually dying and an opportunity to escape Axel arises she quickly takes it. The way Axel has treated Miriam, she is a scared, very apprehensive, self-doubting woman. To be honest the title being “The Rabbit Girls” is fitting in more than the way it is intended as I would liken the character of Miriam to a timid rabbit. Miriam has her own little rituals and obsessions she has to complete to feel any kind of peace at all. From placing a feather between the door and its frame so she can tell if anyone has opened the front door when she goes out. Though she doesn’t go out much, only when absolutely necessary. The book begins with Miriam caring for her father, Henryk, by washing him and whilst doing so moving his watch strap revealing some numbers tattooed on his arm. Miriam immediately associates this number with the war, yet doesn’t know why her father has this marking as her parents have never spoken about it, or the war to her either when she was a child or an adult. It’s whilst seeking comfort surrounded by the fragrance lingering on the dresses in her mother’s wardrobe that Miriam comes across a bag she hasn’t ever noticed before. The item in the bag is a dress, but not something she would have expected her mother to have in her possession….it is an old, worn, faded striped dress made from rough material. The dress is the uniform worn in concentration camps by women. It’s whilst handling the dress, feeling it’s texture whilst trying to understand why her mother had this uniform yet Miriam had never seen it before or even knew her parents had been in a camp at all during the war that she discovers letters and notes have been sewn into the different and hidden the seams and sections of the dress.
The letters are in both German and French which presents Miriam with a problem as she can read one language and not the other. Miriam takes a rare trip out, briefly leaving her father to go to the library hoping to find a dictionary to help translate the letters or better still find someone who could translate the letters for her. Miriam finds a young man who suggests his mother would be able to translate the letters.
The book then covers the friendship and trust that Miriam and Eva build slowly with each other. Miriam has a lot to cope with and very little support around her. Naturally Miriam is finding it difficult coping with caring for her father knowing that no matter what she does he is still going to die. When her father calls out the name Frieda which Miriam discovers is the writer of the letters, she is determined to find out what happened to Frieda. Maybe if she is alive her father Henryk, may want to see her before he dies. Miriam also wishes to learn how, and why her father has numbers tattooed on his arm and what he went through during the war. Miriam is curious as to why neither of her parents ever mentioned anything to her. During the book Miriam does have help from Eva with the letter translation but she has interference from her husband Axel. Axel has always played mind games with Miriam, and when he attacks her and no one believes he has raped her, putting the assault down as a domestic dispute Miriam finally decides to make a stand, she wants a divorce. Unfortunately for Miriam Axel is far from finished with her. Making professionals think she is unfit to care for her father, that in fact maybe it would be a good idea is she was placed in a mentally facility herself! Axel turns out to be a very disturbed and wicked, evil man. Some of the things he subjects Miriam too are things that the Nazi’s did to women in concentration camps. Cutting their hair, regular beatings, taking any control over their own bodies or life away. Axel really is as sadistic as the Nazis.
I really admired the character of Frieda, who is initially a student in a class that Professor Henryk is teaching. They have similar ideals and when the Nazis begin restricting what books they are allowed to read and discus, Henryk and Frieda find they are sort of kindred spirits. Their ability to speak different languages means they are able to retain a little privacy when talking. Soon they are meeting up secretly and then not long after having an affair despite Henryk being married. When it becomes apparent that Henryk is in danger of being rounded up as a political prisoner and possibly sent to a camp Frieda begs him to leave Berlin with his wife Emilie, even providing jewellery to pay for their escape. Emilie works as a nurse and is considered “safe” or not a “problem person” by the Nazis whish is why they could both flee relatively easily. Emilie knows of Henryk and Frieda’s affair and gives Henryk an ultimatum but Henryk fails to make any choice in time as he and Frieda both end up as political prisoners in camps. Frieda is first sent to Ravensbruck, then Auschwitz, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, which is where she writes her secret letters to Henryk, not even knowing if he is alive. Henryk is sent straight to Auschwitz and made to give up any ideals or rebelliousness up when he is put to work in one of the crematoria.
This book has so much going on from the story of the letters, revealing what happened in Henryk and Frieda’s past. There is Miriam’s abusive relationship with Axel, where he has made her into someone who self- harms in an attempt to feel in control of something. Axel also interferes with the arrangement where Miriam is caring for her father in is home. He succeeds to the extent of having Henryk removed from Miriam’s care and being placed in a care home/hospice. Though things don’t totally go to Axel’s plan when Henryk is taken ill during the transportation of him to the hospice and has to be rushed to hospital. Axel is a very violent, strange man who will stop at nothing to get Miriam to do as he bids her to. There is also the fact that the Police do not seem to believe Miriam’s version of events when Axel corners Miriam outside the hospital Henryk is in temporarily and assaults and rapes her. The Police insinuate that the rape is a misunderstanding, that perhaps Axel didn’t know her wishes, or in fact that as Axel has told them she likes spontaneity, and rough outdoor sex!
Eva is another great character in the book that I adored. Eva has her own secrets and past trauma’s to deal with. It is through a chance meeting at the library that sees Eva end up being an important and instrumental person in Miriam’s life. Eva translates the letters from Frieda to Henryk. Eva also talks with Miriam and encourages her to take action against Axel. It is only with the help of Eva that Miriam finds the internal strength to demand a divorce. Eva becomes a true friend to Miriam and even finds someone to help her prove that Miriam is not the mentally disturbed individual that Axel is portraying her as. Then when once again it looks like Axel is gaining the upper hand during an assault on Miriam, it is Eva that comes to her aide. Eva is also a great support to Miriam when she reads the final letter she has translated. Eva attempts to ease Miriam slowly into the frame of mind to accept what the letter seems to suggest.
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Tackles difficult themes: abuse, marital disloyalty, forgiveness, and Holocaust concentration camps
Wonderful book. Will stay with me for a very long time.
Too many twists in the plot to be able to follow easily. Good storyline with predictable conclusion.
A fetching title, but really a side story. Some unanswered questions about characters. Ultimately portrays love in so many ways. Love endures despite internment in deplorable camps
It was hard for me to rate this book. It was different. I stopped reading a couple of times. It was a very intense read. Telling about the life of a family after the war.
The Rabbit Girls referenced in the title does not mean it’s about those unfortunate women on whom the Nazis experimented medically. Rather, they are a bit of an analogy for the main character. Suffering from initially unexplained medical and especially psychological problems, the story flips between her difficult situation and her father and the father’s lover during WWII. While the ending answers all the questions raised by the plot, it’s a murky read and I found it difficult to like most of the characters. I also found a few things to be highly improbable, which is one of my bug-a-boos.
Great reading
I didn’t really like all the letters, but I guess that’s the story form.
The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory – oh wow what a heart breaking historical read focusing on women, their bonds and their will to survive.
The novel is set in Berlin in 1989 as the wall is coming down, as well as in 1942-1945 in Berlin, Ravensbruck and Auschwitz. This is a novel that will haunt the reader long after the last page is read.
We cannot survive in isolation. If we are alone, we will lose hope. If we lose hope, we die. The women in the camps supported each other, willing each other on in their fight to survive. The reader marvels at their strength, their love and their sacrifices. “Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for a friend.”
In contrast to the love, there is the guilt – in moments of weakness and a desperate desire to survive, things were done that would haunt forever. Moral codes were blurred and broken in the camps.
There are some incredibly hard to read scenes within the camps. Cruelty had no boundaries as guards became monsters. Medical experiments in the name of science maimed and killed. The women inmates offered love and comfort where they could. “Hani’s eyes leaked love.” The world seemed oblivious or didn’t care. Women needed to survive to be able to voice the horrors. “We have to stay alive, for we are the only witnesses.”
In 1989 Berlin an unlikely friendship forms between two women – one from the east and one from the west. Mirroring the war years, it is only by standing together that the strength is found to face and confront another evil monster. Here there are difficult to read scenes of domestic abuse. It is not ‘asked for’ nor ‘deserved’. It is abuse and never the fault of the victim.
The novel is written in the third person in 1989, in the form of letters from the camps and in the first person as we hear the inner workings of a mind confined by a stroke. It is well thought out and put together.
The Rabbit Girls is a powerful and harrowing read. It will consume. It will haunt. It is also a work of great love – a love that will last, a love that cannot die.
We must keep alive the memory of the six million innocents who perished. I will leave you with a powerful quote:
“People who experienced it cannot find the words, and those around them do not want to hear.”
Deals with horrific events from the Nazi occupation with an interesting story line.
A gripping, terrifying, heartbreaking read.