Three Sisters

by Heather Morris

I present to you a review for a book that will transport you unwillingly from Slovakia into the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. The horrors are especially difficult to read about because this novel was so well researched including interviews with primary sources, two of the three sisters who are protagonists in Heather Morris’ Three Sisters. The third sister had passed away before the author began this project. Unlike some survivors of the concentration camps, these sisters talked about their experiences to people who wanted to hear, especially their family members. These relatives were a treasure trove of information about the camps, the Nazi selections of individuals, hiding from the SS, and the kindness and treachery of nonJews.

Family, of course, is very important to Cibi, Magda, and Livi, the three sisters. Their father makes them promise to always stay together and support each other. Their grandfather gives them the mantra of “hope and strength” which they carry with them through the worst of times. Later they can joke about bad conditions by comparing them to the deprivation they experienced in the camps.

Three Sisters is a hard book to read, but another worthwhile reminder to not allow this history to repeat itself. Ironically, the last part of the book which was about happier times brought the strongest emotional response from me. This reaction is a tribute to Heather Morris as a storyteller who, despite the tragic subject matter, brings her characters to life in such a way that you feel like you really know them and you understand them as much as is possible as an outside observer.

I recommend this book. I know these characters will stay with me for a long time.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Rating: 5/5

Category: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women’s Fiction

Notes: by the author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Publication: October 5, 2021—St. Martin’s Press

Memorable Lines:

As the plaintive cries of their families fade, new voices—angry, hate-filled voices—greet them as they make their passage through the town. Their former friends and neighbors are hurling rotten fruit and stale bread at their heads, yelling their joy that the Jews are finally leaving. Cibi and Livi are stunned by the taunts, the full-throated bile being dispensed from snarling mouths.

…they will never forget their desperation to put something, anything, in their stomachs. These days they savor every mouthful, but, more than that, they cherish the freedom to move around the city as they choose, no longer under the watchful and penetrating gaze of a kapo or worse, an SS officer.

Cibi thinks about the space in her heart where God used to live and wonders, for a second, if the peace she feels in her sisters’ arms is a sign that maybe He never really left.