First published 2021
On March 25, 1942, in Poprad, Slovakia, nearly a thousand young Jewish women dress in their finest clothes and wave goodbye to their families. They board a train believing they will work in factories for several months as part of government service. These unmarried women, many still teenagers, feel excited about their adventure and proud to serve their country. Their government has secretly paid the Nazis 500 Reich Marks per person to take them as slave laborers. The train carries them not to factory work but to Auschwitz concentration camp. The women become the first official Jewish transport to arrive at the death camp. They face systematic dehumanization and murder not only because they are Jewish but because they are female. Author Caroline Moorehead reconstructs their experiences through survivor interviews, historical research, and testimonies from witnesses and family members. Only a handful of the 999 deportees will live to tell their stories.
Genres: holocaust, historical-fiction, 20th-century, world-war-ii
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: based-on-true-events, female-protagonist
Setting: Auschwitz, Poprad, Slovakia
Period: 1942
1 pages · Audio CD · Tantor and Blackstone Publishing
Content warnings: death, violence