In Victoria’s War, Hamilton gives voice to the courageous Polish women who were kidnapped into the real-life Nazi slave labor operation during WWII. Inspired by true stories, this lost chapter of history won’t soon be forgotten.POLAND, 1939: Nineteen-year-old Victoria Darski is eager to move away to college: her bags are packed and her train ticket is in hand. But instead of boarding a train to … to the University of Warsaw, she finds her world turned upside down when World War II breaks out. Victoria’s father is sent to a raging battlefront, and the Darski women face the cruelty of the invaders alone. After the unthinkable happens, Victoria is ordered to work in a Nazi sewing factory. When she decides to go to a resistance meeting with her best friend, Sylvia, they are captured by human traffickers targeting Polish teenagers. Sylvia is singled out and sent to work in brothels, and Victoria is transported in a cattle car to Berlin, where she is auctioned off as a slave.GERMANY, 1941: Twenty-year-old Etta Tod is at Mercy Hospital, where she’s about to undergo involuntary sterilization because of the Fuhrer’s mandate to eliminate hereditary deafness. Etta, an artist, silently critiques the propaganda poster on the waiting room wall while her mother tries to convince her she should be glad to get rid of her monthlies. Etta is the daughter of the German shopkeepers who buy Victoria at auction in Berlin.The stories of Victoria and Etta intertwine in the bakery’s attic where Victoria is held the same place where Etta has hidden her anti-Nazi paintings. The two women form a quick and enduring bond. But when they’re caught stealing bread from the bakery and smuggling it to a nearby work camp, everything changes.
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Slave Labor Nazi style
I had never heard of this part of WWII until I read this book. I did not know that the Nazi’s rounded up thousands of Polish people when they invaded Poland and forced them into slave labor. They used them for free work in their factories, in camps, in brothels and sold them in the marketplace for business’s to buy to use as servants. If they resisted they were murdered by the Nazi’s. Those women under Nazi occupation with any type of disability, deaf, blind, or other disability were sterilized against their will. Residents of the Hadamar mental institute and other medical facilities in Nazi Germany were euthanized under the Nazi T4 operation .
This is a fiction story that is written about real historical events. It was hard to read because of the horrible treatment the characters were forced to endure under the rule of the Nazi’s. I did love the characters and the story was well written.
This story is about deaf German girl Etta whose parents were Nazi’s and owned a bakery. She is sterilized against her will when her mother orders it done. Her brother Wolfgang is a member of the SS. He tries to protect his sister but will not go against his mother. She makes friends with the new slave girl Victoria until she is sent to Hadamar by her mother.
The story is also about a catholic Polish girl Victoria that is forced to work in a factory with her mother after the Nazi’s kill her sister and force them to go to work in the factory. She attends a resistance meeting with her friend Sylvia and the Nazi’s arrest them. Sylvia is sent to a brothel and Victoria is put up for bid at the market and purchased by Etta’s brother Wolfgang to work in the family bakery. She is treated very bad by the mother but Etta and her become friends in secret.
Etta and Victoria deliver bread to the work camps until Etta is sent to Hadamar for stealing bread from the bakery for the people in the camps and the girls in the brothel. Then Victoria delivers the bread. When Tomas and Victoria decide to help the brothel girls escape they are caught and sent to prison.
It is not an easy book to read but it is a good book and it is a part of history that need to be told. I am glad a read it . It is a page turner, it has action right from the beginning and holds your interest until the last page is done.
After the book there is explanations of the history and facts leading to this story. I would definitely recommend this book.
Thanks to Catherine A. Hamilton, Plain View Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of the book for an honest review.
I was very much touched with this audiobook, firstly I would like to thank the author, Catherine A. Hamilton, for giving me a gifted copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This ARC is now published.
Readers, do you want a raw, poignant book? because this one is definitely that. Anyone read the Tatooist of Auschwitz? If you have, cut the tatooist out of the story and concentrate on the crudeness of concentration camps and you have more of an idea of just a touch of what this book is like.
Etta had it really tough, first of all she was deaf and couldn’t talk, she loved painting and creating but couldn’t show her work, she had to hide them under the floor boards in an attic.
Victoria, although the two girls were very much the protagonists in this story, I felt Victoria dominated most of it, herself assured attitude kept her alive even though her parents weren’t what you call favourable. Abused by Ettas father as well as being made to wear ill fitting shoes and basically be a slave to Etta’s parents.
There were many characters I didn’t like in this book, but two that I picked out are the most important ones that you would think would be the most caring. The two mothers, Ettas and Victoria’s, however in saying that Victoria’s mother was a kind woman. She tried desperately to protect Victoria and her sister from the Nazis, and she secretly gave food to the Jewish seamstress.
Loved when the two girls, Etta and Victoria meet in the attic.
Loved the friendship Victoria had with Mrs Kosa, the wise mature woman who was extremely daring not to mention the dreadful combination of top and skirt.
Room 324 ended up haunting me, as Etta now had to get used to living there.
The mystery for me was finding what happened exactly in the shower room, which a nurse found out through simpleton Phillip, who held the key.
Loved the part where Victoria found her friend Sylvia in a brothel, but was heartbroken that she had fallen pregnant so many times and I felt for her when she had decided to keep the baby.
This was definitely a 5 star read for me and would suit anyone interested in Historical Fiction, especially Poland and Germany, WW2. Nazi v Polish/Catholics. Years 1939 – 1941.
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https://paulinereidbookreviewer.wordpress.com/2021/05/28/not-to-mention-the-dreadful-combination-of-top-and-skirt/
Victoria’s War is nothing short of a work of Art , Stories like this that HAVE to be told, can be hard to read at times but The honor is ours everytime , She writes with such Heart , dedication and passion , its quite humbling to witness !
It is such a beautiful Honor and testament to the Brave , Women , Children and Men that endured so much !
I look forwad to reading more from this Author.
This fictionalised true story of the plight of Polish women and other victims of the Nazi ideology is heart-rending and poignant. Almost impossible to believe this was happening to women in living memory.
What transcends the horror is the solidarity and friendship between Etta and Victoria and it is a beautiful testament to female friendships and bravery.
Most of the books you read dealing with the holocaust describe the plight of the Jewish population.
Less talked about are the people that ended up as slave labor and what Germany did to its own population that did not stand up to the picture of the pure and superior German race.
This book gives us some insight on both situations.
The story of a young Catholic Polish girl ready to start her studies at the University and instead ended up as a slave laborer in a bakery in Germany. Been treaded worse than an animal and no shortage of been misused.
Second interwoven with the slave laborer we have the baker’s daughter Etta. Because of her deafness isn’t considered worthy of belonging to the German race. The treatment by her mother is horrendous and it is not a surprise she ended up in an institution that targeted and ended the lives of disabled people in Nazi Germany.
This is a good reminder that a lot of people were victims of this war. I don’t minimize the treatment of the Jews and hope that one day everybody will accept a person for what they are another person. Not define somebody by race, color or religion but I’m afraid it will not happen in my lifetime.
My father been part of the Belgium armed forces ended up as a prisoner of war in Germany and later on was part of the liberating forces dealing with some of the concentration camps. Many healthy woman and man from the occupied countries were used as slave labor in German factories. There are many more cases and a lot of people did not survive.
Emily Behr’s narration of this audiobook was great and she did an excellent job bringing the story to life.
Victoria’s war is a book that I was so looking forward to reading and like, as a huge fan of WW2 this was really a story I want to read but unfortunately, This book was not for me, it was what I was looking for not because the story was bad or the narration at the contrary it is a good story… my main complaint about it, was only because the cruelty was present at all times, it was like in constant repetition, there was not a moment where the reader could take a break and breath or even smile a little with the main character it was cruelty over and over again for the heroine.
This is the story of Victoria and Etta two stories that life somehow brings them together and intertwine in a bakery attic. this is the part that I really like about this book, that two women who needed help, kindness, and support were brought together in the terrible situation only to support and help each other in the best way they know.
I know that these stories tend to be very hard to assimilate and I understand that the cruelty is beyond comprehensible, I have read many many times cruelty that was terrible but Victoria’s War started with cruelty since the first pages and it was non-stop over and over again.
I had a really hard time listening to how the “New Family” of Victoria who was more like enslavers were constantly treating her worst than you can imagine. I had enough when the woman started to hit her with a spoon it was too graphic and too evil, not to mention the woman was so evil to even her own child.
The narrations by Emily Behr were amazing, this is the first time I heard her work and it really brought so many emotions, I love what she did with this book.
The only reason I’m giving this book 3 stars is that really couldn’t handle my emotions at all, it was too much for me to take. I really encourage you to give this book a chance it is a good book.