The Book Marketing Network

For book/ebook authors, publishers, & self-publishers

This 114 page, approx. 29,000 word novel tells the story of fifteen-year-old Hanna Berkenski’s journey from her family's tiny apartment in the Warsaw Ghetto, through the awful night she spends in a cattle-car with her mother and sister, to her three years as a violinist in the welcoming orchestra at Auschwitz. Through first-person narrative, Hanna takes the reader on her journey.
We see through the eyes of one young girl, the terror of living surrounded by pain and death, the horror that can be created by mad-men, and the friendships and hope that sustained her and allowed her to dream of a future.
The real horror begins as the train arrives at Auschwitz. Hanna’s first impression is of a warm welcome because of the flowers and sunshine and music. She has been told she will be spending the next few weeks in a “work” camp until her family is reunited and relocated. Even the snowflakes make her feel a sense of relief…until she realizes they are not snow at all, but ash. Her life begins to spin out of control when her mother is shot and killed at her feet for objecting to the rough treatment of her daughters. Her sister is loaded onto a truck that is traveling to an unknown destination, and Hanna is taken to Bldg. 11, where the “welcoming” orchestra women are housed.
Her red hair is shaved, her arm tattooed, and she is given a blue skirt, and a white blouse. She is also given a gray dress, which she wears when she is not performing. Then, she is expected to help the Sundercommando at their ghoulish tasks in the death house. She overhears the final words exchanged by a mother and daughter, as they are lead to their deaths naked and terrified. She watched the bodies being fed into the hungry mouths of the blazing furnaces by Jews whose own pain far out-weighs the dead. She spends three years in Hell, and yet she still, at times, is able to laugh, love, give and receive friendship, and dream of a time when she will see the sun… not obscured by a veil of human smoke.
When the liberation finally comes there are only a few prisoners left in the camp… most of them too sick to be bothered with. The others had been marched from the camp by their Nazi captors, weeks before.
Sick and alone, Hanna is befriended by an elderly physician who nurses her back to health, and fills her with a loving memory she will carry with her always.

Views: 3

© 2024   Created by John Kremer.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service