Annelies / David R. Gillham / 402 pages

What an intriguing book!!  We all know the story of Anne Frank.  David Gillham takes this part of history and writes a "What if ?" novel.  His premise is what if Anne Frank survived the death camp?  The author did a wonderful job of telling this story.  It took him several years to do the research to write this novel.  The first part of the book follows the story we know of Anne Frank.  But then the author has Anne surviving the death camp.  Anne is reunited with her father, Otto, in postwar Amsterdam.  The author includes the actual people that we know from Anne's story, but also creates a few characters to tell this story.  The reader follows Anne as she struggles with survival guilt and trying to pick up her life. Reading this book made me feel like I was actually in postwar Amsterdam.  Excellent writing and research!

Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope / Wendy Holden / 368 pages

Born Survivors tells the story of three young Jewish women who gave birth around the same time in 1945.  The women did not know about each other, but were together at Auschwitz II-Birkenau in Poland  in 1944.  They were later sent to the death camp Mauthausen in Austira.  The women managed to conceal their pregnancies. It was nearing the end of the war and the kindness of strangers, which included civilians and guards, helped these women and their babies survive.  Sixty-five years later the three "miracle babies" meet for the first time at Mauthausen for the anniversary of the Americans liberating the camp.  The author does a good job telling the individual stories of each woman.  It is absolutely astounding that these women were able to give birth and for their babies to survive.