The Nine, Gwen Strauss
The Nine, Gwen Strauss
25 Rating(s)
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

The Nine
The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany

Author: Gwen Strauss

Narrator: Juliet Stevenson

Unabridged: 13 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/04/2021


Synopsis

The Nine follows the true story of the author’s great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a ten-day journey across the front lines of World War II from Germany back to Paris.

This program includes a bonus conversation with the author, as well as an archival recording of Martine Podliasky singing the Champs de Marais at her mother, Hélène Podliasky's, funeral.

The nine women were all under thirty when they joined the resistance. They smuggled arms through Europe, harbored parachuting agents, coordinated communications between regional sectors, trekked escape routes to Spain and hid Jewish children in scattered apartments. They were arrested by French police, interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo. They were subjected to a series of French prisons and deported to Germany.

The group formed along the way, meeting at different points, in prison, in transit, and at Ravensbrück. By the time they were enslaved at the labor camp in Leipzig, they were a close-knit group of friends. During the final days of the war, forced onto a death march, the nine chose their moment and made a daring escape.

Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

"A compelling, beautifully written story of resilience, friendship and survival. The story of Women’s resistance during World War II needs to be told and The Nine accomplishes this in spades."—Heather Morris, New York Times bestselling author of Cilka's Journey

"This haunting account provides yet more evidence not only of the power of female friendship but that the often unrecorded courage and resilience of ordinary women must be honored and celebrated. It’s a most inspiring read...Utterly gripping." —Anne Sebba, author of Les Parisiennes

"The Nine is poignant, powerful, and shattering, distilling the horror of the Holocaust through the lens of nine unforgettable women...Gwen Strauss melds a poet's pen and a decade of research into a tale of friendship, courage, and indomitable will." —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author

About Gwen Strauss

Gwen Strauss is the author of The Nine and a collection of poetry, Trail of Stones. Her poems, short stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals including The New Republic, London Sunday Times, New England Review, and Kenyon Review. She was born and spent her early years in Haiti. Strauss lives in Southern France, where she is the Executive Director of the Dora Maar Cultural Center.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Darla on October 06, 2022

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.--Martin Luther King Nine women break away from a death march and strike off across Germany to reach the front and the American line. This is their story. Six were French, two were Dutch, and......more

Goodreads review by Ellie on June 15, 2021

Tales such as this one never fail to haunt and surprise me. I find myself learning new things every time. The Nine tells the true story of the escape of 9 young women from a concentration camp in WWII. It tells the stories of how they all ended up at the camp, and their daring escape to freedom. True......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on February 01, 2021

The Nine by Gwen Strauss is an excellent nonfiction that tells the suspenseful and true-life stories of a group on nine women whom were captured, imprisoned, and escaped from the clutches of the Nazis during WWII. This book was so engrossing, fascinating, harrowing, and captivating that I forgot at......more

Goodreads review by Mallory on April 30, 2021

This book was heavy and hard to read at times but so worth it. I’ve read a lot of books about the horrors that happened to the Jewish people by the Nazis, but this was the first I read about what happened to those who helped to resist racism and also ended up in camps. The nine women depicted in thi......more

Goodreads review by Lori on March 27, 2021

I finished reading "The Nine" before work this morning and all I can say is "what a story!!" I have read numerous books about the Holocaust, both fiction and non-fiction, some good or great, others not so great, but out of each and everyone of them there is one thing that stands out above all else a......more