Three Sisters by Heather Morris

414 pages

Publisher: Bonnier Books

Publishing date: October 2021

Own Copy

Book Club Read

 

Blurb

A promise to stay together.

An unbreakable bond.

A fierce will to survive.

From international bestselling author Heather Morris comes the breathtaking conclusion to The Tattooist of Auschwitz trilogy.

When they are girls, Cibi, Magda and Livia make a promise to their father - that they will stay together, no matter what.

Years later, at just 15 years old, Livia is ordered to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Cibi, only 19 herself, remembers their promise and follows Livia, determined to protect her sister, or die with her.

In their hometown in Slovakia, 17-year-old Magda hides, desperate to evade the barbaric Nazi forces. But it is not long before she is captured and condemned to Auschwitz.

In the horror of the death camp, these three beautiful sisters are reunited. Though traumatised by their experiences, they are together.

They make another promise: that they will live. Their fight for survival takes them from the hell of Auschwitz, to a death march across war-torn Europe and eventually home to Slovakia, now under iron Communist rule. Determined to begin again, they embark on a voyage of renewal, to the new Jewish homeland, Israel.

Rich in vivid detail, and beautifully told, Three Sisters will break your heart, but leave you amazed and uplifted by the courage and fierce love of three sisters, whose promise to each other kept them alive. Two of the sisters are in Israel today, surrounded by family and friends. They have chosen Heather Morris to reimagine their story in her astonishing new novel, Three Sisters.

 

Review

It’s not very often that I read a story that is as horrific as it is uplifting and inspiring, but that’s what happened here. I’m sure I do not have to go into detailed descriptions of the nightmare Cibi, Livia, and later Magda were forced to live through while in German concentration camps. Suffice it to say that it is nothing short of a miracle that anybody would survive such ordeals with their humanity intact, yet all three of them did. And that’s only one of several miracles. The odds against Magda and her two sisters finding each other and being reunited once the middle sister is also captured by the Nazi machine are staggering but it happened. That all three of them managed to survive both the camps and the death march is nothing short of mind-blowing, as is the fact that all three found their way to the emerging state of Israel and a new life.

It was somewhat surprising that while the horrors I read only pushed me from word to word, it was the happier moments, like when Cibi gave birth to her son, that brought tears to my eyes. Or maybe it is not that surprising since my reactions mostly mirrored those of the three sisters. They pushed their emotions away during the nightmares they endured, only to let them flow once they’d found (relative) safety.

I haven’t read either of the prequels to this book and I don’t think I ever will. Born in the early 1960 in the Netherlands, I was raised on WW II stories. In fact, the vast majority of books published at the time in the Netherlands was in one way or another related to the war and/or its aftermath. Stories about the five years during which the Netherlands was occupied were required reading in school. History lessons were dominated by those recent events at the cost of everything that happened in previous centuries. I imagine there isn’t a horrific event or heroic action I haven’t read about over the years, and I’m not convinced exposing myself to more of it will benefit me in any way, no matter how uplifting the ending of such a story might be.

Three Sisters is a very well-written book and portrays the lives of these three girls/women in graphic and often horrific detail. I have no doubt both The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey are equally good and worthy books. I just don’t think that reading them will bring me anything other than more confirmation of man’s ability to inflict terrifying horrors on his fellow man.

Which is why, when I remember this book, I will focus on the promise the three young girls made to their father. They said they would always stick together, and they did. Keeping their promise goes a long way to explaining how they managed to survive their ordeal although it’s hard to deny that an enormous amount of ‘luck’—a bad word to use given the circumstances, but non the less true—played a big role too.

I guess that’s the message I take away from this book. If the whole world turns against you, trust and hang on to those who only have your best interest at heart, even if it means ignoring everybody else.