Born Survivors

In the final months of World War II, three pregnant women were transported through the Nazi concentration camp system. All three gave birth in the camps. All three—and their children—survived. Wendy Holden tells their three stories in parallel, drawing on interviews with the survivors and their children, many of whom only learned the full details of their birth late in life. The book doesn’t dramatize for effect; the facts need no embellishment. What Holden does well is ground the history in specific, human detail—the relationships these women formed with each other, the decisions they made, the small acts of solidarity from unexpected quarters that made the difference. Born Survivors sits alongside Night and Man’s Search for Meaning as a book about what people carry through unimaginable conditions and what they carry out the other side.