Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Mischling

Fiction by Affinity Konar.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

This was an almost-poetic novel about children in Auschwitz, if you can believe that. The title refers to a German word for half-breed or mixed blood, something the Nazis detested, but the main characters are not really mischlings at all. Sasha and Pearl are a pair of identical twins, Polish Jews plucked from the cattle car by the infamous Dr. Mengele for study in his laboratory.

The story is both beautiful and terrible, and I feared to finish it because I hated the thought of these poor girls' destruction. (Even though, you have to expect that in  Holocaust book, I know.) Even at the liberation of Auschwitz it still looked really bad for Pearl and Sasha, and that was the point I'd been hoping for things to get better. But the good news is that they don't both die....

I would recommend this book, as long as you know it's very sad, but that there is hope at the end.


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