The Angel Of Auschwitz

I Have To Save Them by Ellie Midwood is the most powerful, heartbreaking and horrifying dual timeline novel that I just could not put down.

The story starts and ends with the same day in 1961. It bookends the tale. There is a choice to be made – what would you choose?

Much of the novel is set in Auschwitz and is grounded in fact as we follow German citizen, Orli, who was betrayed by her Nazi husband six years earlier. We also ‘hear’ events from 1961 as we see “She may have left Auschwitz’s walls, but the walls of Auschwitz have never left her … tormenting her with nightmares of the past.” As a medic who was under Josef Mengele in Auschwitz, Orli saw terrible things, things that would haunt her forever. It took real strength of character not to crumble as she clung “to her humanity in the face of such brutality.”

Within the infirmary in Auschwitz there grew up a friendship between the nurses. They had to be strong in order to support each other. They offered kindnesses where they could. It felt like a drop in the ocean but “whoever saves a single life saves an entire universe.” The women stood together through it all. “Together we’ll pull through.”

There were times when they felt evil was too much to bear but “they were warriors, each one of them a beacon of resilience, a beacon of hope.” They had to hold on to the hope that one day the sun would shine again. “She knew that even in the darkest times, there was always a glimmer of light, a way to hold onto humanity.” The light shines in the darkness as the angel of Auschwitz walked among them.