Menu
Top of the pile
85
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
92/100Critics
77/100Scholars
Author:
Magda Hellinger, Maya Lee, David Brewster
Publisher:
Atria Books
Date:
March 15, 2022
In March 1942, at the age of 25, kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger was deported from her hometown in Slovakia along with 998 other young women. The SS soon discovered that by putting prisoners in day-to-day charge of the accommodation blocks and even the camps at large, they could both reduce the number of guards required to use these 'leaders' to deflect attention away from themselves. Magda was one such Jewish prisoner selected for leadership.
What The Reviewers Say
... a compelling and seamless portrait of a young woman who managed to survive and save others through cunning bravery and compassionate leadership.
Magda’s unusual perspective is fascinating not only for its insight about how the SS ran the camps, but in how she occasionally glimpsed the unofficial side of monstrous Germans.
... heartbreakingly sad but also somehow hopeful.
In this harrowing personal narrative, Magda’s experience as a block leader is shared in heartbreaking detail.
