- Lilac Girls: A Novel (Woolsey-Ferriday)

Even though I own a lot of books that I still haven't read, I'm always on the lookout for new novels that suit my main reading interests of historical fiction and contemporary romance. I came upon this book based on some of my recent purchases and was immediately drawn to it because I have read a number of novels that take place during WWII, most recently The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. I originally hesitated in purchasing this book because it is a bit more expensive than books I usually buy but in the end, my interest and intrigue in it won and I found myself immersed in this incredible debut novel. Lilac Girls switches narration among three women whose different views do an outstanding job of shaping the story. It starts with Caroline Ferriday, a wealthy New York woman who volunteers for the French Consulate in the late 1930s, right before the start of WWII. Caroline and her mother love to help people and send boxes of necessities over to the children in France. While Caroline's story mainly takes place in New York during the war, she becomes very instrumental towards the end of the story. Kasia Kuzmerick is a young Polish girl who is taken prisoner for being part of the Polish underground and sent to Ravensbruck, a women's concentration camp in Germany. The last woman who narrates this novel is Herta Oberheuser, a young German doctor who is eager to get a decent job that will help pay for her family's life. The choices she makes end up changing the course of her life forever. I am simply amazed that this novel is Martha Hall Kelly's first novel because it is written so well, nicely researched, and the narrations by the three women really bring the story to life. Given the subject and time during which Lilac Girls takes place, a lot of the details and situations can be difficult to read but the author writes this novel in such a way that makes it easier to absorb. I love the fact that she gives her narrators, particularly Caroline and Kasia, a bit of humor and sarcasm when appropriate because it makes them seem more real. While this novel certainly isn't funny, I feel those character traits help give those narrators more of a personality that get them through some of the darkest times. I found Kasia's story to be most significant but Caroline's and Herta's stories are also extremely important because together, they shape Lilac Girls into a truly unforgettable read. Lilac Girls is an amazing novel and I am so happy I took the chance on it because I enjoyed every minute I spent with this book. Because of the subject matter, it isn't a light-hearted read but Martha Hall Kelly's writing style makes this book flow so well and I found myself looking up some of the persons in the novel. A number of the people in this book were real and this book is very well-researched and well-written. Many of the chapters end with a bit of a cliffhanger which definitely kept me wanting to read more. If you enjoy reading historical fiction novels that take place during WWII, I recommend reading Lilac Girls because it is very hard to put down and the changing back and forth between the three women narrators helps paint a picture of WWII from around the world and how they all impact each others' lives.

I give Hall Kelly a tremendous amount of credit for writing this book as it's a complicated story to put to paper. However, there are so many areas where there was opportunity to create greatness and instead she filled it in with storylines that didn't quite bring everything to the full point of the true horror taking place. The story unfolds from the first person perspectives of Caroline Ferriday, a wealthy socialite, Kasia Kuzmerick, a fictional Polish prisoner and Dr. Herta Oberheuser, an ambitious, German female doctor. To begin, Caroline Ferriday was a real life person who was deeply involved in charity work particularly for children in France who were displaced to orphanages. In the book, she is a volunteer at the French Consulate in New York and almost immediately her charitable works become an afterthought. Though Hall Kelly has Caroline presenting very direct and important information regarding American's reluctance to engage in the war, Hitler's intentions to eradicate all Poles, a desperate desire to have the lock on visas lifted, the data gets lost in silliness. She falls for a fictional married French actor and her main story centers around him making her appear weak, pathetic and completely out of touch. Throughout the book, including the time when she finally becomes involved with the "Rabbits", her character is sturdily encompassed in emotional reactions and not intellectual making her appear more like someone's generous wealthy, "head in the clouds" grandmother than a thinking woman. Given the actual history of Caroline Ferriday, this didn't seem to jive with the overall story. However, if the authors intent was to show just how out of touch Americans, particularly the wealthy, were when it came to the suffering in Europe in juxtaposition against Kasia story, then she succeeded. Kasia is the most interesting character and one with depth and full development. Kasia is a fictional person loosely based on the women who were the "Rabbits" at Ravensbruck, Himmler's only all women camp during the war. The "Rabbits" were a group of women ranging in number given of about 30 to 70 who had been put through surgical experimentation using sulfa drugs. Kasia's story regarding her own leg experimentation is fairly horrific but here again Hall Kelly seemed to decide to pull back on just how far she wanted to go. Though Kasia and her sister Zuzanna both face inhumane treatment, there's no further discussion on what happened to many others with only veiled references to an area known as "the bunker" where we're left to guess just how horrible it was. Not discussing or introducing other characters who had received even more horrific treatment didn't fill in the gap of what really happened. In Kasia's case, her leg had bone and muscle tissue removed and various objects such as glass and dirt along with bacteria sewn into her leg. Other "Rabbits" had actual amputations some done without the use of morphine. When Kasia and her sister finally make it out of Ravensbruck, her story of anger, bitterness, anxiety attacks are all very well written making her a very believable person. Lastly, there's Dr. Herta Oberheuser who from the very beginning is a sociopath. Also a real life person, she's immediately made out to be a completely damaged individual with ambitions to become a surgeon but has no apparent human feeling about being a doctor. She also has no sense of self worth as depicted in a rather disgusting moment between herself and her uncle. The only time she shows any human emotion is when she makes a small gesture to Kasia's mother in the camp and later when she cries for a moment upon meeting Kasia years later. One of the areas of the book I found annoying was the dialogue used to tell a moment. Three times in the book, this is distinctly there and comes across as false in descriptive detail like the speaker had suddenly become the author. Overall the book is a good read and recommended for the effort made in trying to take the reader to each place and experience the times and the moments faced by each character.

It’s been a while. After three Nor’easter’s, two minor snow storms, a nasty sinus infection, struggling with writing yet another novel, and a recently devasting death in the family later… I still hadn’t whittled down my “Books-to-Be-Read-this-Month” stack. It wasn’t until this past holiday weekend when I finally said, “To hell with it all!” and picked out a novel at random, tuned out this world, and entered the saner literary one… A world that, both unfortunately and unfortunately, turned out to be not so much sane, but more disturbingly bizarre with its stark realities than, and reflective of, the actual one I had left. To paraphrase the character Sophia in The Golden Girls: Picture this. Nazi Germany. 1939. In Lilac Girls, a compelling first novel by Martha Hall Kelly, Kasia, a teenager from Lublin, Poland, is rounded up, along with Helina, her mother, and Zuzanna, her sister, by German soldiers. Within minutes, they are imprisoned in the bowels of Lublin Castle. Three days later, the women find themselves being shipped by train to Furstenberg where they are incarcerated in Ravensbrück, the largest concentration camp for women in Germany. Kasia and her sister become part of a group known as “Rabbits”. One, because they are experimental lupin (French for rabbits) in a heinous plan devised by Hitler’s henchmen– Herring, Himmler, and Goebbels to find a “cure” for war injuries – and two, because after undergoing grotesquely cruel, inhuman operations, they could do nothing more than hop and hobble around the camp. A little-known figure in history, Caroline Ferriday, a former Broadway actress and member of the elite New York City society, works as an attaché in the French embassy. As the author relates in the first person, Ferriday’s multi-faceted story is fascinating; steeped in the guts and glory of the war era coupled with the difficulties and uncertainties of finding -- and keeping – true love and friendship. Richly written and crafted in true documentary fictional style, Ferriday’s narration unfolds throughout the course of the war until her life entwines with that of Kasia and Zuzanna. And, eventually, comes to grips with Herta Oberheuser, the only woman physician actually allowed on Ravensbrück’s medical staff. And, truth be told, one of the most cruelly insensitive historic fictional characters I have met in a long time. The author, as related in her endnotes, spent more then three years immersed in ferreting out and writing about details of Ferriday’s life and, now, because of this historical novel, her enduring legacy. Character descriptions, both imagined and real based upon letters, diaries, and archival records, as well as personal journeys to Poland, Paris, and German – not to mention Ferriday’s now historical home (“The Hay”) in Bethlehem, Connecticut – are more than true-to-life. They are real in the narration because Kelly has brought them back to life with considerable skill and consummate empathy. Which made reading about them not only enjoyable, but elucidating, enlightening and, more importantly, in the face-paced, exciting – and quite satisfactory – denouement, uplifting. Perhaps Lilac Girls was the wrong novel choice to read when lone and forlorn (still am, a bit, I guess) from coping through the trials and tribulations of March. But Kelly, who has found her exceptionally gifted literally talent and voice, offers a powerful anecdote by relating, through fiction, not only the boundless bravery and fortitude of the Rabbits, but the kindness of Caroline Ferriday who through her hard work, generosity, and gentle compassion, helped them recover from what could have been devastatingly lasting effects of their own trials and tribulations. Which proves just about anything in real-life, however disturbingly horrific – albeit couched in fiction – can be overcome. And that, as April finally bounds into Spring, is giving me and, hopefully, you, renewed hope. Enjoy the read!

5 Stars Review. I usually don’t give out five stars unless the book has really touched me and this one did. This is the first book I’ve read by author Martha Hall Kelly, and I’m so glad I did. The story was well written, the character development was amazing, with each of the characters you got a sense, of hope, devastation, anger, longing, despair, but this was one of the most enthralling, intriguing and insightful. I did learn some things that I never learned in school and that was about Ravensbrück, the only major Nazi concentration camp for women in Germany. The author did a great job of research for this book on the characters, the locations, and the about the concentration camp. I too went online and learned some more about this concentration camp as well as more about two of the characters. This book starts out in 1939, and focuses on three main characters: Caroline Ferriday was an actress on Broadway, and when she gave up performing she went to work at the French consulate in NY, and was helping the orphans there by having fundraisers and with the help of many of the wealthy friends she knows to give, she would provide the orphans with clothes, shoes and whatever else she could send to them. One night she meets a fellow French actor, Paul (Sorry I can’t remember his last name) they start being seen together. Even through Paul is married and his wife Rena is still living in Paris, Paul request that she be allowed to come over to the U.S.. Caroline sponsors her so that she would be granted a visa, but before it can be authorized, Paul goes back to France upon hearing that Hitler is going to trying to take France. Shortly after Paul leaves, Hitler takes Paris. Caroline has been granted a higher clearance in her job. She takes on the part of learning where all the concentration camps are located. She turns her attention on helping the “rabbits”. This is based on the real Caroline Ferriday who actually did work on Broadway and in the French Consulate; she did come from a wealthy from Connecticut. Her humanitarian is such a blessing to read about, especially in this day and age, she gave so much of herself in helping the women from concentration camps that were truly not only survivors but were heroes as well. The second character is a young polish girl from Lublin. Kasia is a former Girl Guide. When her best friend disappears and the Germans take her dad away because he runs the post office in town, she decides to join the young resistance. Her story in the book is so much about hope, friendship, surviving, dreams and is the character that I was more drawn to. Your heart went out for her and I found myself wanting to get back to her in the book. I won’t go into a lot on her because for those of you wanting to read this book and I do encourage you to do so, I want you to take in her whole story, and at times it will take your breath away. The last character is Herta, this woman was born in the wrong era. She longs to be a surgeon, but in this time, women doctors were basically only allowed to be dermatologist. To me, she seemed angry, cold, stuck up and just not a nice person in general. But I can understand a little as to why she was the way she was. Living in that era was not easy for a woman to get a great career, or to be taken seriously. Herta has a chance to show her skills when she is called upon to be on a medical team at Ravensbrück, her Hippocratic Oath is immediately compromised: Her eagerness to scrub in quickly overcomes any remaining scruples as Herta conducts grisly surgical “experiments” on inmates, including Kasia. The women, many permanently maimed, who undergo these “studies” become known as the “Rabbits.”

A wonderful and heartbreaking historical fiction novel about WWII and the Ravensbruck camp for women. Many of the characters are real people while others are based on real people. This is a gorgeous story of hope and perseverance. It is also a story about evil and it is painful to read at times. The world has apparently not learned much from the horrors of concentration camps, as we continue to hate and hurt each other. The story is told by three narrators with chapters alternating among them. It takes place between 1939 and 1959. Caroline Ferriday, a real person, is a New York socialite who once acted on the stage. She is trying to do good by working for an organization that helps French orphans. She desperately wants a family of her own. She is not very bright when it comes to love as she has an affair with a married French actor. Dr. Herta Oberheuser lives in Germany and is a gifted surgeon. However, because she is a woman she is relegated to a dermatology practice. Her life is pretty crappy in other ways as well. She jumps at an opportunity to work at Ravensbruck reformation camp for women. She is fully indoctrinated into the Hitler way of thinking. Kasia Kuzmerick is a Polish teen who is working for the resistance. She and her sister Zuzanna, their mother, and some close friends are captured and sent to Ravensbruck. The girls, along with 72 other Polish women are subject to horrific medical experiments. They are nicknamed the Rabbits. The story follows the trajectory of these women and the ways their lives intersect. Caroline is eventually alerted to the plight of the Rabbits and she works to raise money to have them brought to the US for medical treatment in an effort to reverse the trauma done to them. The book also includes the Nuremberg Trials and the fate of Dr. Oberheuser. This book is so well done. Hats off to Martha Hall Kelly for thorough research and deep respect for her narrators! As I mentioned earlier, this book is hard to read. And it should be hard to read. I was not familiar with the Rabbits, though I did know that medical experiments were done on prisoners. I learned a lot and this book gave me a lot to think about. I consider this to be on par with The Nightingale and All The Light We Cannot See, which are excellent in my opinion.

This book was devastating and so real. Chapters are written from the point of view of three very different women. Each of the characters came alive and drew me into their stories. Caroline Ferriday is a wealthy, privileged woman who works at the French Consulate, and in addition to her other duties, sends packages to orphanages in France. She seemed boring, and superficial at first to me, but it was beautiful to see her mature and become a truly giving and compassionate woman. Kasia Kuzmerick is a young woman in Poland whose world is changed by the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. She is imprisoned along with her mother and a few neighbors and friends for their work in the Polish Underground. Kasia is sent to Ravensbruck, a reeducation camp (in reality, a concentration camp) where she is part of an experiment and is operated on by the Nazis. She is left with one leg missing bone and muscles and is rendered lame. She and the other women who were operated on were called Rabbits and had to hide from the Nazis who wanted to kill them in order to cover up the experimental operations. Herta Oberheuser, a German dermatologist, is the third woman who gives her view of events. She is a believer in the Nazi vision of the Aryan race and has no qualms about murdering pregnant or disabled prisoners with lethal injections, sending prisoners to be executed, or engaging in experimental surgery on the prisoners. She has no conscience and does not blame herself for her past actions. It was war after all, and the prisoners were less than human to her. After the war, she was given a 20-year sentence at the Nuremberg Doctors Trial, but after only serving 5 years of her sentence, she was freed. She set up a lucrative practice. Shockingly, her patients were babies. Caroline arranges for Kasia to come to the United States to be treated. Hopefully, she will be able to walk again and experience less pain. Her condition improves enough for her to walk with a limp, although some pain remains. After a time when Kasia is back home in Poland, Caroline asks for her help in tracking down the Ravensbruck doctor who operated on the women in the camp. Could Kasia go to a small town in Germany and verify whether the Doctor Oberheuser there was really Herta? Kasia travels there with great risk, since it is hard to get out of the Soviet dominated Poland. (Poland was liberated by the Soviets, but their rule was brutal. Thousands of people were executed and life was bleak. Germany had been split into East Germany, which was Soviet dominated, and West Germany). Kasia confronts Herta, but Herta only has excuses for her past actions. When I read the author’s notes, I realized this was an historical account even though a few fictional characters existed to make the author’s story. The experiments on the women’s legs did happen. There was a Dr. Oberheuser who participated in those surgical experiments. There was a Caroline Ferriday who worked to help the Rabbits as they were called. Through Caroline’s efforts advocating to punish the Nazi physician, Herta’s medical license was eventually revoked. The author has done considerable research including Caroline’s own letters and the court testimony of the survivors of Ravensbruck. Kasia Kuzmerick and and her sister Zuzanna are fictional names for Nina Iwanska and her sister Krystyna who was a physician, just as Kasia’s sister Zuzanna was in the book. The author researched seventy-four “Rabbits” and added some of their experiences to Nina and Krystyna’s stories. These women were really operated on at Ravensbruck. I was somewhat bored with the account of Caroline in the beginning of the book, but as the book progressed, I became hooked by the story. I had to hold onto my seat towards the end of the book when Kasia made her journey to Germany from Poland in order to find out if the physician, whom Caroline suspected was actually Herta, was really the Nazi physician at Ravensbruck.

Okay, so I know I've given a number of books 5 stars, and I don't really do that lightly. But, Lilac Girls should get 10! I haven't read as good a book in a very long time. IMO it deserves the Pulitzer. It was much better than All the Light We Cannot See by a thousand times and than Goldfinch by ten thousand times. And, please, Underground Railroad isn't even in the same league. The author Martha Hall Kelly does a remarkable job of bringing a terrible time in world history to life. She peoples this amazing novel with genuine as well as fictitious characters. She did incredible research to tell this story without distorting history. Her writing is beautiful, swift, captivating and accurate. Do not miss reading this book! Okay so what's the story about? Everything begins in 1939 in New York City, Poland, and Germany. We have three point-of-view characters, Caroline in New York, Kasia in Poland and Herta in Germany. Each tells her story in her own way. The voices are clearly as different as the setting. As a reader, I had a hard time being in Herta's point of view. But, reading it helped me better understand the birth of Nazism in war-torn Germany. As a reader, I struggled with Kasia in her point of view because I did not wish to experience the atrocities. Nonetheless in the hands of this skilled author, I devoured the pages without regret. The saga goes from 1939 to 1959 and shows what happened to these three women during and after the war. Initially I wanted to story to end at the end of the war, but that wouldn't have been fair. Indeed, we must keep going to get a better historical perspective and "the rest of the story." The author knew that even if I didn't. What Kelly does is teach us about certain atrocities that have not been made fully public. She also tells the story about an unsung heroine in Caroline Ferriday. I thank her for both those things. This story is full of love, relationships, anger, grief and much more. It will tug at your emotions. But, it wraps up beautifully. Be sure to read the author's note at the end to fully understand the people and who they were. Unfortunately this was Martha Hall Kelly's first novel. I wanted to read more from her. Her passion about what happened to the Lilac Girls and how they survived rings true on every page. Will the author find passion elsewhere? We will just have to hope so and wait and see.

For the most part, I enjoyed this book. I learn something new every time I read a book set during WWII, and in that regard, this book didn’t disappoint. It’s clear it was well researched over years of pouring through documents. Set during WWII, it tells the true story of Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Unlike most of the books I’ve read set during the Holocaust, this novel focused on women who had been sent to Ravensbrück, not because they were Jewish but because they were working with the underground resistance in Poland. When Kasia is found out, her sister, mother, and friend are all sent to Ravensbrück but faced no less horrors than other concentration camps. It is inspired by true stories. I was interested in reading about Caroline Ferriday, a NY socialite and former actress who worked tirelessly to help French orphans during the war. She went on to become central in the fight for justice for the Ravensbrück survivors. But I found the details about high society (fashion, silver, fabrics, designers) distracted from the story and at times made Caroline seem petty and difficult to relate to. This is a woman who deserved more from the writer. The fictionalized love story between Caroline and a French actor did nothing for the plot other than add a searing romance. In a book that centered on such harrowing events, I found it unnecessary and forced. Did the publisher think it would sell more books? The character, Herta Oberheuser, a doctor who worked at Ravensbrück and conducted horrific experiments on the women, is based on a real person. But her character lacked depth. Were we supposed to be disgusted? Angry? Intimidated? Sympathetic? It was an interesting choice to include a German woman who supported the Nazis and willingly participated in war crimes, but since her character was so flat, it seemed unnecessary to have chapters written from her point of view. Her role could have easily been included in the author’s notes. The title LILAC GIRLS makes no sense to me. Nor does the cover of 3 women walking hand in hand. Who were these women? There are many women in the novel. There are lilacs in Caroline’s family gardens, and she shares them with the women who visit with her to take home to Poland, but it’s a minor detail that isn’t explored until the end of the book. Maybe a metaphor? It didn’t work for me. Overall, a good book that could have been better in my opinion. But it’s a good start to learning more about Caroline and Ravensbrück.

This book I found to be masterfully written, three diverse women's stories that alternative and interweave so that the reader cannot put down the book for want of finding out what happens next for each of them. Given the subject matter, I couldn't imagine how the author could ever find the words to describe such extremes of torture and cruelty. I think it is extremely important for people to become aware of this horrible and gruesome Nazi practice and also of the kindness of those who helped victims however they could.

the story really has everything.i was taken to world war times, as a reader i enjoyed every character in the book.

History in a novel format. Lovely and upsetting on each page. Inhumanity to women by women and men is what war is. Don’t read it on the beach; you risk feeling indulged and self-absorbed.

Dislike - the title and the cover picture. Both do not do justice to the story. Like - the inside story of a number of Holocaust victims from pre war to years later. The book detailed the true happenings of women used in concentration camp experiments and their lives afterwards. Well written and engrossing and well worth reading.

The Lilac Girls features 3 women: a Polish teenager, a young German doctor, and an American socialite. They all played a part in WW2, and their lives are forever changed by their experiences during this turbulent period of history. Kasia is arrested by the Nazis for her involvement with the Polish resistance and sent to the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp with her mother and older sister. There she undergoes experimental surgery, performed by Herta as part of a Nazi research programme. Meanwhile in the US, Caroline raises funds within her high society circle to provide practical assistance to French orphans. After the War, Caroline hears about the Ravensbrück ‘Rabbits’ and brings them to America for medical treatment to help repair the damage done to their legs by the experiments. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even though it was harrowing at times. The 3 women are very different in both personality and experience, yet it was easy to identify with them. Their character and strength (or lack of it in Herta’s case) drive the story forward to conclusion. The author’s comprehensive research shines through, particularly as both Caroline and Herta were both real people, only Kasia is fictional, but based on an actual victim of the Ravensbrück experiments. The supporting cast are well drawn and provide context for the main characters. The Lilac Girls is a fascinating insight into a little known story of Nazi experimentation, and shows us how Kasia’s experience at Ravensbrück continued to have both a physical and emotional effect long after the end of the war. Caroline is the catalyst for Kasia’s healing process and despite her privileged background, she sacrifices her own personal happiness to assist others. As for Herta, well, you will have to read the book to find out what becomes of her. A gem of a book, I would recommend The Lilac Girls to anyone with an interest in WW2 history told from a female perspective.