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.

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.”

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!

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.

You know those books that everyone seems to rave about and when you finally read them, just don’t seem to hold up to what everyone was talking about? That’s what this book was for me. So why the four-star rating? Because part three brought everything together quite beautifully and I finally, *finally,* loved it. The book’s narrative is divided between three characters and into three parts. The first character, Caroline Ferriday, was a New York City socialite and former broadway star. She is also a real person from history who worked tirelessly as a humanitarian for French orphans and the “Ravensbruck Rabbits.” Her story was interesting but was honestly the most confusing to me throughout the first two parts of the book. I could not figure out how this woman, so far removed from everything happening in Europe, had anything to do with the other stories of the book. Also, how she handled Paul’s wife was a bit disappointing considering what his wife had gone through, but that could be a harsh judgement on my part. The second character is a Polish teenager, Kasia Kuzmerick, who was arrested and sent to Ravensbruck. She became one of the prisoners who suffered through experimental surgeries on her leg at the hands of German doctors. These women who went through these degrading and gruesome surgeries became known as the “Rabbits,” partially because they were forced to hop around camp to be able to get around, and also because they were the German’s “experimental rabbits.” She and her sister were based on two sisters who were prisoners at Ravensbruck. Her character was by far the most heart rending. She went through so much and to watch her go from being a carefree, sometimes thoughtless young teen, to the survivor in camp, to the bitter woman she became, and then to watch her transform and begin to heal was really quite remarkable. Her’s was my favorite of the stories, though hers is also the most difficult to read. Herta Oberheuser was the third character and a German doctor. The only woman doctor who worked at Ravensbruck, as it would turn out. This account was the fictional telling of the true Herta who worked in Ravensbruck and helped perform countless surgeries on the women prisoners there, all in the name of the Reich and the “greater good” of Germany. While Kasia’s story was difficult to read because of the atrocities and PTSD she had to live and suffer through, Herta’s was difficult because of the inhumanity. There was so much justification, so much personal brainwashing. And what happened to her after her war crimes trial really made me angry! It was definitely disturbing to read how someone could feel justified and right in doing such cruel things to other human beings. Parts 1 and 2 of the book are good, but again, I was confused how any of the three women would come together. Herta and Kasia do, obviously, because they were both at Ravensbruck. But Caroline was an utter mystery. It all becomes clear in Part 3 and the back stories of all three from the previous two sections do help play a crucial role in making Part 3 a success. I think Part 3 is the shining glory of the whole book and would have loved more of what was there. Overall, it’s a good book, just know going in that the disjointed stories of the three women will not make sense until you’re closer to the end than the beginning or even the middle. Parts 1 & 2 get three stars from me but Part 3 is worth five. Note: contains disturbing content—remember, one of the primary characters was a prisoner/patient at Ravensbrück, where female prisoners were subjected to terrible experimental surgeries. Though the details are not overly graphic, there are still some details of those surgeries and the future effects of them upon the women there. Another main character was one of the doctors at Ravensbrück, and she has a very apathetic attitude about her part in the atrocities committed there. Also in the book: other treatments and murders of German prisoners in their concentration camps. What happened to orphaned/abandoned children, including children with German fathers and French mothers (so sad!). There is also talk of sex/sexual relations, and one steamy kissing scene that doesn’t progress to anything more (though it is on it’s way to more before getting interrupted). AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Read by: Cassandra Campbell, Kathleen Gati, and Kathrin Kana. Each of these women did a marvelous job with their readings. I really loved that there was a different voice for each character. I think it brought the story more alive. The accents were very well done and the reading was excellent.

Parts of this book were hard to comprehend, yet with the help of one very determined New York socialite and philanthropist, hope was restored. Based on the lifevof Caroline Ferriday, this recounts her efforts to restore life to Polish women who survived the horrors of Ravensbruck Prison. The scenes at that infamous prison for women are hard to read. The inhumanity of the Germans to their prisoners is beyond belief. My only issue with the book is the last paragraph. It ended very abruptly and I did not know what the class fewcwords meant. An I portant book, to be sure, and one everyone should read.

As a lover of historical fiction, I was disappointed in Lilac Girls. Though the book has been researched, according to the author's note at the end of the novel, the poor writing made the novel seemed like a summary in many places instead of like a story. The book is dreadfully written, and not just because the author used to be an advertiser (or something like that) because there are many well written advertisements. She just doesn't write with any kind of style, the descriptions were shoved in during important action, and the name brand and name dropping got ridiculous pretty early on. I didn't understand the title, unless it's the corny mention of lilacs blooming again after a hard winter that one of the narrators, Caroline, says to the survivor Kasia. If so, it was insulting. The cover was also misleading and offensive. The three women in the story are not friendly, and could never be: in fact, one of the characters tortures and maims another, and the third meets the victim, but not the villian(ess). I know the author doesn't pick book covers, but it was still offensive and misleading, so editor, take note. The book itself begins by alternating chapters like this: Caroline, Kasia, Herta. Then it becomes Caroline, Kasia, Caroline, Kasia, Herta. Then, finally, it's something like this: Caroline, Caroline, Caroline, Kasia, Kasia, Kasia, Kasia, Kasia, Caroline, Caroline, Herta. Very weird alternating the chapters but devoting more and more of the book to only a few of the original narrators. The novel follows the WWII stories (and briefly after) of three women: NY socialite and philanthropist Caroline Ferriday, Polish Underground member Kasia, and Nazi doctor Herta Oberheuser. The first and the last characters are based on real persons, and they are the most boring characters in the novel. Caroline is pretentious and self-absorbed, flitting about the French Embassy until the War closes it, constantly reminding us that she doesn't have to work for a living and doesn't get a salary but that doesn't matter because she doesn't have to ever really work for a living like most of the characters in the book (or like the people who are reading the book). Caroline is the single most uninteresting person in the book. And she gets worse as the novel goes on, until she is finally doing nothing but naming all the celebrities at a party, and describing her dress only by the name of the designer, who I never heard of. Even though Caroline helps the women who suffered the Nazi medical experiments, called "The Rabbits," I simply could not care for her. And the love story was totally superfluous and dull. The author says she made up the Paul character to give Caroline "more of a connection to France," but since the real Caroline had an apartment in France and spent part of the year there every year while she was growing up, I didn't understand why the author felt the book Caroline needed a man to feel connected to France once the war started. In any case, their romance was colder than snow in the Arctic, and I felt nothing for them when they were separated. The Nazi doctor, Herta Oberheuser, is basically as undeveloped as Caroline. She starts off being extremely anti-Semitic and very pro-Nazi, then suddenly arrives at the sole concentration camp exclusively for women, Ravensbrück, reluctant to do anything bad to the inmates, even though they are all technically enemies of the Reich. Her change in attitude toward the Jews and other prisoners is never explained. the novel does not explore the Jews who were in the Camps. I realize that the Camp may not have had that many Jewish inmates, but I thought the Nazis considered anyone who was in the Camps as inferior or as abnormal or as criminals. That's why Herta's reluctance to "do her job" didn't ring true. Her friend Fritz starts off being really enthusiastic about killing the inmates and telling Herta that she better get with the program, but by the time the Camp is about to be liberated, Fritz is horrified by what the Nazis, meaning Fritz and Herta, are doing to the inmates, and Herta acts like she can't figure out what's wrong with him. Again, no indication about why these characters changed their minds or attitudes. Also, since Herta does not have as large a share of the book as the other two narrators, she basically appears less and less as the book progresses, so her feelings and motivations were very undeveloped in her story. During her trial, which the author claims was based on the real Dr trials at Nuremberg, the "excerpts" from the trial would last about 5 minutes in a courtroom, so I wondered what on earth the author left out and why. Herta was a very weak part of the novel, and I actually do not understand why the author made her one of the narrators if she wasn't going to truly explore the character's motivations. The most interesting character was Kasia, the Ravensbrück inmate, who was a composite of many of the women who were operated on in the Camp. Some reviewers have complained that they didn't like the book because Kasia wasn't a real person, but I thought she was more interesting (and I cared about her more) than any of the other characters, including Caroline and Herta. Of course, I realize that no one was supposed to care about Herta since the author didn't write the book in a way that readers could understand her, but I got the feeling, given all Caroline's chapters, that the author wanted readers to care about Caroline, and that just didn't happen. Kasia was a fascinating character. I was so interested in what happened to her that I started to read her chapters, just to satisfy myself that she survived and to find out what happened to her, then went back and read the chapters of Caroline and Herta. Kasia's story fell apart in the final sections of the book when she gets married, has a child, then comes to America to get medical treatment because the author starts summarizing the story events instead of showing them to us so we can get emotionally involved. But for most of the book, Kasia is fantasic. I definitely agree with other reviewers who complain about the book's writing. It is terrible. And their reviews are detailed enough that you can get all the information about the writing from them, so I'm not going to repeat what they already said. I also have a bit of a problem with the way the author ignored the fact that the Holocaust happened primarily to the Jews, and didn't mention the fact that the Nazis practiced genocide against the Jewish population of Europe. She just shoved a couple paragraphs in when some part-Jewish neighbor of Kasia's was shipped from Auschwitz to Ravensbrück and died right after telling Kasia what happened to them, and that was all she wrote about the Jews and the Holocaust. If the author wanted to only write about Ravensbrück and its women inmates who were tortured in medical experiments, then she should have only written about The Rabbits. By mentioning the Jews and what happened to them at Auschwitz, she made their story unimportant. She should have left it out. By putting it in as a little paragraph or two, she made it seem like the Holocaust wasn't about the Jews at all. That bothered me. I would have liked it better if she had never mentioned them at all and just made the book about The (non-Jewish) Rabbits. I'd never heard about The Rabbits or about the experiments done in Ravensbrück, so that's why I gave the book 3 stars instead of 2. Though it was sad to read about what happened to those women and girls, I wanted to know what it was about. That part of the story kept me reading and made me finish the book. If it had only had Caroline, I never would have read it all. If it had only Caroline and Herta, I would not have finished it. I guess the made-up character Kasia is the one whose story got me to finish the book despite its really bad writing and character development.

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.

The structure of having 3 sub plots of 3 individual females involved in the holocaust, with individual experiences, allows emphasis to be honed in on the fact that everyone was effected by this war. It is based on a true story and if you love history this is definately a good read .. I found myself thinking 'oh my gosh, this actually happened to people' and it being so alien to me and an occurrence I could never find myself in. It does make you evalate your life after every chapter that is crammed full of intense description of brutal and awful atrocities (that are true), that keep you gripped until the 470th page. As the reader, you experience the emotional rollercoaster that each narrative voice experiences, and because of this a unique relationship with each character is built... making it all the more diffcult to digset the wrong doings that happen throughout the novel. I could go on forever ... truly an amazing novel, in content and syntax, absolutely love it!

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.

Entertaining ...will read the sequel. Although based on true events it still reads like pure fiction. Good Summer read