The Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

Experimental Rabbits. 

This historical fiction brings to light the medical experiments conducted on the prisoners of Ravensbrück, the all-female concentration camp in WWII Germany. 

Two characters are based on actual people:  Herta Oberheuser was one of the doctors who performed the experimental surgeries on the ladies who became known as “Rabbits,” because they were medical guinea pigs and for the fact that afterwards they could barely walk and had to hop around.  The other real person was Caroline Ferriday, a New York City philanthropist who sent aid to French orphans and later helped the “Rabbits” obtain medical treatments years after the war. 

This book was unnerving to read yet so engrossing it was hard to put down.  Very well written.

Further Non-fiction Reading About the Holocaust:

Night by Elie Wiesel 

In Our Hearts We Were Giants by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev

When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann 

Historical Fiction set in WWII:

 

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr – Won Pulitzer Prize  

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

City of Thieves by David Benioff 

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows 

Address Unknown by Kressmann Taylor

Non-fiction About the Pacific Theater during WWII: 

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers 

U.S. Internment Camps during WWII: 

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Annette