RENA'S PROMISE

A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz   (LWH)

by Heather Dune Macadam
Co-author of Rena's Promise

This is one of those book you don’t just read it….it becomes a part of you!
I was very touched by the memoirs of Rena and her story of surviving the Nazi concentration camps with her sister, Danka.

Until I read this book I wasn’t aware that this year, 26 March 2012, marks the 70^th Anniversary of the first transport to Auschwitz concentration camp. That first transport in 1942 was almost entirely young women between the ages of 16 and 22. Among those 999 young Jewish women was #1716, Rena Kornreich, a 21yr old Polish Jew hiding in Slovakia. A few days later, her sister Danka #2779 arrived. This began a trial of love and courage that would last 3 years and 41 days, from the beginning of their journey in Auschwitz, to the death march through the snow, and on to the end of the war. Her motivation to keep her and her sister alive no matter what happened came from a promise to her parents to keep her younger sister safe. Her visions of her mother helped her through the most difficult times.

I also wasn’t aware that women's accounts of the Holocaust are rare, and until ‘Rena's Promise’, there has been no other book written by a survivor from the first transport of women, mainly because not many women survived. And for that reason alone she is historically important. Her details of events are confirmed in many archival documents and plans. There are many more testimonies published from male survivors than women's accounts, yet the fact remains that the first transport was not men but girls on the verge of womanhood. They were targeted by the Nazis as they wanted to stop the continuity of Jewish life.

SISTER

SISTER

by Rosamund Lupton   (STAFF)   LWH

It took me a while to start to enjoy this book I will admit. The story is told as a letter from one Sister to another which I didn't like at first, but then came to see the layers being peeled away as Beautrice writes to her sister, Tess, who has gone missing, and reveals her inner thoughts and fears.

Living in New York, Beautrice, a successful art designer, gets a message that her sister living in London has gone missing. Single, pregnant, a struggling art student, Tess has been reported missing by the landlord. Was she a runaway, has she suicided or been murdered? ... you will find out as the mystery unravels. Although the Police believe one of these, Beautrice wont stop until she finds out what has really happened to her sister in the lead up to her disappearance.

A gripping story that has a giant twist that I didn't reallly see coming, with a story that is far more complicated than first thought. Throughout the book we see a change in the perfect and well organised Bee until she transforms little to little to be more like her sister than she ever thought possible. There is a connection with her younger brother who died at an early age from Cystic Fribrosis and the disappearance of her sister that will be revealed.

Well worth the a read.

THE ALPHABET SISTERS

THE ALPHABET SISTERS by Monica McInerney

Anna, Bett and Carrie were sisters and childhood singing stars (The Alphabet Sisters). Unfortunately after a family falling out... Bett's fiance deserting her for her younger sister Carrie, things were never the same and the sisters all went their separate ways and as adults hadn't spoken for years. Their much loved, slightly eccentric, crontrolling, larger than life, but very wise grandmother, summonded them home (Clare Valley, S.A.) for her 80th birthday party and surprise announcement. This of course was just a ploy to reunite the sisters and for them to realise they need each other. 

Lola has decided to stage a play in town with local actors and each of her granddaughters have an important role to play. As they work together to bring Lola's dream into being their relationships start to mend. During the course of the story we are submursed into the lives of the three sisters, their trials and tribulations and the misconceptions they have about each other and what really happened all those years before that put a huge barrier between them.