Print List Price: | $19.99 |
Kindle Price: | $14.99 Save $5.00 (25%) |
Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishers Price set by seller. |
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Image Unavailable
Color:
-
-
-
- To view this video download Flash Player
- VIDEO
Audible sample Sample
Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope Kindle Edition
Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
The Nazis murdered their husbands but concentration camp prisoners Priska, Rachel, and Anka would not let evil take their unborn children too—a remarkable true story that will appeal to readers of The Lost and The Nazi Officer’s Wife, Born Survivors celebrates three mothers who defied death to give their children life.
Eastern Europe, 1944: Three women believe they are pregnant, but are torn from their husbands before they can be certain. Rachel is sent to Auschwitz, unaware that her husband has been shot. Priska and her husband travel there together, but are immediately separated. Also at Auschwitz, Anka hopes in vain to be reunited with her husband. With the rest of their families gassed, these young wives are determined to hold on to all they have left—their lives, and those of their unborn babies. Having concealed their condition from infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, they are forced to work and almost starved to death, living in daily fear of their pregnancies being detected by the SS.
In April 1945, as the Allies close in, Priska gives birth. She and her baby, along with Anka, Rachel, and the remaining inmates, are sent to Mauthausen concentration camp on a hellish seventeen-day train journey. Rachel gives birth on the train, and Anka at the camp gates. All believe they will die, but then a miracle occurs. The gas chamber runs out of Zyklon-B, and as the Allied troops near, the SS flee. Against all odds, the three mothers and their newborns survive their treacherous journey to freedom.
On the seventieth anniversary of Mauthausen’s liberation from the Nazis by American soldiers, renowned biographer Wendy Holden recounts this extraordinary story of three children united by their mothers’ unbelievable—yet ultimately successful—fight for survival.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateMay 5, 2015
- File size19024 KB
Customers who bought this item also bought
- In six years the Nazis had killed approximately two-thirds of the nine and a half million Jews living in Europe, as well as millions of non-Jews.Highlighted by 472 Kindle readers
- The Danes, of all the occupied nations, had protested most vehemently about the Nazi treatment of the Jews and managed to save the majority of their own Jews by hiding them or helping them to safety. Those they couldn’t save were monitored so closely by the Danes that the Nazis afforded them special treatment.Highlighted by 445 Kindle readers
- Only 300,000 of Poland’s 3.3 million Jews had survived the war and an estimated 1,500 were murdered in the years after they returned home, many for anti-semitic reasons.Highlighted by 421 Kindle readers
- Of the more than 200,000 people registered as living in the Łódź ghetto, less than a thousand survived. It was one of the Nazis’ greatest triumphs in the destruction of European Jewry.Highlighted by 412 Kindle readers
- Auschwitz was the only camp in the entire Nazi system that tattooed its inmates, a practice it had begun in 1941. Those destined for the gas chambers were never registered or tattooed, which worried any who were unmarked.Highlighted by 393 Kindle readers
Editorial Reviews
Review
“It’s no surprise Born Survivors is gathering excellent reviews.” — Chicago Tribune
“Packed with harrowing detail and impressively well-researched…. Intense, powerful, and moving, more than make up for this. Born Survivors is a worthy testament to these three women and the miraculous survival of their children.” — Jewish Chronicle
“With remarkable detail gleaned from a wealth of research, journalist and author Holden relates the three women’s unforgettable journey from their imprisonment in ghettos to their arrival at Auschwitz, where the feared Dr. Josef Mengele inspected each woman to find out who was pregnant, through their forced labor at munitions factories and the final hellish transport to the Nazi concentration camp at Mauthausen.… An astonishing and deeply moving work.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Holden deftly weaves together the stories of three women-Priska, Rachel, and Anka-whose children were born in Nazi concentration camps during the last chaotic weeks of World War II. The author’s analysis of each woman’s experiences. . . provide[s] valuable insight into the stark choices faced by Jews during the Holocaust. This book is recommended for a wide audience and all libraries.” — Library Journal
“A work of quite extraordinary investigative dedication…. A moving testament of faith.” — Sir Harold Evans
“Born Survivors, is exceptionally fresh history, a work of prodigious original research, written with zealous empathy.” — Women in the World, New York Times online
“An astonishing and deeply moving work.… With remarkable detail gleaned from a wealth of research.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently.... An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Holden’s triple biography is packed with enough contextual information to qualify as a history lesson but makes its impression as a tale of undeniable courage and astonishing love in the face of incredible cruelty and evil.” — Contra Costa Times
“Holden weaves…written, oral and recorded accounts, plus an array of historical records, into a spellbinding story of perseverance amid systematic abuse.” — American Jewish World
From the Back Cover
“An astonishing and deeply moving work.”—Booklist (starred review)
“An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.”—Kirkus Reviews
Among the millions of Holocaust victims sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1944, Priska, Rachel, and Anka each pass through the concentration camp’s infamous gates with a secret. Separated from their husbands and strangers to one another, they are pregnant and scared. After losing so many other loved ones to the Nazis, these women are determined to hold on to all they have left: their lives and those of their unborn babies.
Born Survivors follows them as, against all the odds, they give birth to their babies and go on to build new lives with their children after World War II. Theirs are stories of hardships and miracles as they narrowly escape the clutches of Dr. Josef Mengele at Auschwitz; conceal their condition after they are sent to a Nazi slave-labor camp, where they are half-starved and almost worked to death; and as the Allies close in, survive a seventeen-day train journey to Mauthausen in Austria. By the time they arrive, all three babies have been born—but because the camp has run out of Zyklon B, their lives and those of their mothers are saved. Sixty-five years later, the three “miracle babies” share a remarkable, inspirational story of three mothers who defied death at the hands of the Nazis to give their children life.About the Author
Wendy Holden was a journalist for eighteen years, including a decade at the Daily Telegraph. She is the author and coauthor of more than thirty books, among them several internationally acclaimed wartime biographies, plus the New York Times bestsellers A Lotus Grows in the Mud (with Goldie Hawn) and Lady Blue Eyes (with Frank Sinatra's widow, Barbara). She lives in Suffolk, England, with her husband and two dogs, and divides her time between the UK and the US.
Product details
- ASIN : B00NVLNZ8Y
- Publisher : Harper; Reprint edition (May 5, 2015)
- Publication date : May 5, 2015
- Language : English
- File size : 19024 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 400 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #78,945 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #28 in Survival Biographies & Memoirs
- #55 in Jewish History (Kindle Store)
- #103 in Jewish Holocaust History
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Wendy Holden (aka Taylor Holden) is a novelist, non-fiction author, historical biographer and ghostwriter as well as a former journalist for the London Daily Telegraph. Her books have sold two million copies, have been adapted for television and radio, and some have been adopted into the schools curriculum. Two of her titles are about to be made into major Hollywood films.
Since leaving newspapers in 1996, Wendy has written more than forty books, including sixteen international bestsellers and the acclaimed novel The Sense of Paper, published by Random House, New York, now available as an ebook. Her bestselling title is Born Survivors, the true story of three young mothers who hid their pregnancies from the Nazis and gave birth in the camps. This has now been published in 22 countries and translated into 16 languages and was released in a special VE Day 75 edition in 2020. She also wrote the memoir Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day and his Life Lessons with Captain Sir Tom Moore, both of which became top ten bestsellers and remained in the charts for over eight months.
A reporter for eighteen years, Wendy covered news events at home and abroad, including conflicts in the Middle East, Communist Europe, and Northern Ireland. Her non-fiction titles have chiefly been the autobiographies of remarkable women, many with wartime experiences such as Zuzana Ruzickova, who survived three concentration camps and slave labour to become one of the world's leading musicians (now an award winning documentary), and Edna Adan Ismail, an inspirational midwife, First Lady, civil war survivor, and builder of hospitals. Wendy also wrote Tomorrow to be Brave, about the only woman in the French Foreign Legion during World War II (soon to be a film). Her book Behind Enemy Lines was about a young Jewish woman who repeatedly crossed German lines as a spy (now an award winning animation); and Til the Sun Grows Cold tells of a British mother whose daughter was killed in troubled Sudan. She also wrote Lady Blue Eyes, the memoir of Frank Sinatra's widow Barbara, A Lotus Grows in the Mud, the best-selling autobiography of Hollywood actress Goldie Hawn, and Memories Are Made of This, a biography of Dean Martin as seen through the eyes of his daughter Deana.
She penned Ten Mindful Minutes with Goldie Hawn, an international bestseller on mindfulness for parents, and she wrote an ebook for children and adults entitled Mr. Scraps about a dog caught up in the London Blitz. In 2012 she conceived and wrote the bestselling memoir of Uggie, the dog from the Oscar winning movie The Artist, published in 12 countries, and she also wrote Haatchi & Little B, the remarkable story of the relationship between a disabled boy and his three legged-dog, which was a number 1 bestseller in the UK, Portugal, and the US as it melted hearts around the world.
Other works have included the bestselling novelisations of the films The Full Monty and Waking Ned, as well as an Antarctic travel guide with comedian Billy Connolly. She wrote Smile Though Your Heart Is Breaking with Pauline Prescott, and Heaven and Hell with Don Felder, co-founder of The Eagles. Her book Shell Shock, a searing investigation into the trauma of conflict from the World War One to the Gulf War, was published in conjunction with a four-part television documentary.
Several of her books have been serialised in national newspapers and magazines around the globe, selected for audio extracts on BBC Radio's Book of the Week and elsewhere, adopted for the curriculum in schools and colleges and transferred to both commercial television and radio drama. Four of her books have been optioned for film. She also writes screenplays, is an international public speaker, literary festival chair, and teaches creative writing online and at exclusive venues in Italy, Dubai, and around the UK.
Wendy divides her time between the UK, US and Italy but lives mostly in Suffolk, England, with her husband and dogs where she likes to relax in her award-winning garden. She also writes occasional articles for newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, Daily Mail and The Lady. Follow her on Twitter @wendholden, on Instagram @wendyholdenbestsellingauthor, via her website www.wendyholden.com, or her Facebook fan page (https://www.facebook.com/wendyholdenfanpage/?ref=bookmarks). She is an occasional podcaster (http://wendyholden.buzzsprout.com). She has her own Youtube channel - https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCl-hBBGrQhBDQaV2yFqqyug, is her own literary agent, mentor to aspiring writers, and owns a company that develops and publishes e-books and book-related apps.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
So many accountable Nazi's (for their individual participation in these atrocities) should have been killed on the spot...ask questions later. And I am not a death penalty person! I am a Catholic. And I do so hope that they all are all rotting in hell for their war crimes, which were beyond unimaginable.
It was extremely educational but the most emotional book I've ever read as I learned about so many personal stories that have never been told of before. This is such a historic genocide. And for those of us who read this particular book and from reading other reviews, I found that we all are able to feel that of the unbearable suffering and the unspeakable living conditions and displacements everywhere. We witnessed all types of death...all because one sociopath was determined to create a nation of one breed by implementing racial indifference throughout as many European countries as he couple occupy, by the way of a genocide. Peaceful and lawful Jews had but no choice to endure countless cruel and ruthless situations, and in so many inhumane environments.
I guess I can summarize my review by saying this: Other 5 star reviewers had stories to say about their American dad's service to our country...going into these Nazi occupied European countries, freeing so many important, but lifeless people. Thank God for their reviews about their dad's participation, due to their stories of being there to free and do what they could for the prisoners. These American soldiers went beyond all they could to help the people who survived the pits of hell. Let us pray for them, but so importantly for all those who were worked to death, gassed, shot to death, made to go through unbearable ghetto conditions, and having to wear a Jewish star, as if it was an 'inhumane symbol' for the Jewish people to wear in the countries of which Hitler occupied. Thankfully, we allies went in and ended his all too far progressed program. Now, the survivors and their children can respect the Star of David all the more!
To the author, Wendy Holden....you did the most outstanding job at putting us readers in all of the ungodly environments and circumstances which millions of innocent people were made to go into, as well as your three central characters. Your book was hard to read, but it is a MUST READ.
Top reviews from other countries
A strong reminder of the many lives that were lost and the ones that are making sure humanity does not forget what happened. Everyone should read it.
Sin duda uno de los mejores libros que he leído.
Basado en hechos reales.
Un 10.
I’ve read several books about and by Holocaust survivors, and yet each time I read the detailed account of an individual’s experiences I feel the horror afresh. This account, brilliantly told by Wendy Holden, spares none of the terrible details; the one thing that keeps you going, as the reader, through the grotesque inhumanity of the Nazis, is the knowledge that “this story is only being told because the three women and their babies survived.”
As survivor Esther Bauer put it: “The first twenty years we couldn’t talk about it. For the next twenty years no-one wanted to hear about it. Only in the next twenty years did people start asking questions.”
When reading these books I have two immediate responses. One is to try to imagine how I would have coped with those kind of circumstances, and how I would have behaved. The second response is always to ask what this tells us about the nature of human beings, of good and evil, hope and despair.
This time, I had the following thought: The essential requirement for “hope” seems to be “macro” thinking. For many of us, when life’s “normal” we live our little lives with our small goals. But when Force Majeure intervenes, throwing us into a survival situation – be that earthquake, tsunami, terrorist atrocity, or Nazi Holocaust – our goals shift from “micro” thinking to “macro” thinking, at the point where lives and hopes and dreams are torn apart – a shift takes place. A new goal replaces the old: to survive; or to know that your story might be known in the future. And these three women would have hoped that their as yet unborn babies would be the living embodiment of that.