Weekly Reader: Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly; Brilliant Three Person Narrative About the Ravensbruck Rabbits

Weekly Reader: Lilac Girls {Lilac Girls #1) by Martha Hall Kelly; Brilliant Three Person Narrative About the Ravensbruck Rabbits




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: There are many dark and disturbing stories about The Holocaust. One of them is that of the Ravensbruck Rabbits. They were a group of Polish women who were sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. There, a group of doctors performed experimental surgery on them by breaking and reshaping their legs. They were called “rabbits” because many could not walk after the surgery, so most got around by hopping and because they were used as human test subjects and treated like lab animals. Two of the doctors who spearheaded and performed the surgeries were Dr. Karl Gebhardt, Heinrich Himmler's personal physician, and Dr. Herta Oberheuser, who was the only female defendant in the Nuremberg “Doctor's Trial.”

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. In the 1950’s, American actress and socialite, Caroline Ferriday heard about these women. She brought the story of their plight to the American public. She managed to receive enough donations to bring 35 of the women to the United States where most of them received reconstructive surgery. Ferriday also took the women on a sightseeing tour of the states. The women bonded and they referred to Ferriday as “godmother.” Some are still alive to this day.

Martha Hall Kelly wrote of this harrowing but ultimately heartwarming story in her novel, Lilac Girls. Lilac Girls is a brilliant, graphic, and emotional novel that tells of the various sides to this story. Kelly cleverly separates the novel into a three person narrative structure to get the different sides: Ferriday, Oberheuser, and Kasia Kuzmerick, a fictional Polish woman who is meant to represent the Rabbits.

Like all great historical fiction that tells multiple perspectives, Kelly does a great job in personalizing each woman making her not only as a representative of the people involved during this time, but as an individual in her own right.

Caroline is written as a woman who is well aware of her inherited wealth and connections, but is also the right kind of rich person: one who uses that position to help others. She is a quarter French on her late father's side and her mother has homes in France, so she has a deep emotional connection to the country.

Caroline works to aid the French refugees in the war efforts. While the U.S. maintains neutrality in the 1930’s and many of her rich peers mock her for getting involved in something that is “worlds away,” Caroline continues to do her work. She connects escapees to lost family members, creates care packages to be mailed abroad, and hosts benefit performances to provide the war victims with financial aid. This aid reveals Caroline as someone who is always willing to aid others despite the opposition and lack of interest around her. In fact, by the time the United States gets involved with the war, Caroline comes across as a dedicated forward thinker while those around her look like Johnny-and-Jenny-Come-Latelies.

Kelly puts Caroline into a romance with Paul Rodierre, a fictional character. He is very charming and helps her out quite frequently. One of the best passages shows Caroline at a benefit suffering from a lackluster attendance and in strolls Paul with several of his co-stars from his latest Broadway show and their famous and well-connected friends and acquaintances. While Paul is something of a show off and ladies’ man, he has a good heart and is just as committed to helping others as Caroline.

Caroline's story kind of drags when Paul goes missing in Europe and Caroline spends much of the time worrying and trying to get in touch with him. However, she is revealed as someone who puts others needs before her own, even at the expense of sacrificing her own happiness. This is particularly felt when she helps Paul reunite with his family. Her self-sacrificing nature and determination in helping others despite adversity become essential in her ability to help the Ravensbruck survivors.

While Caroline presents the altruistic side that helps others and provides the Ravensbruck Rabbits the assistance they needed, Herta represents the side of the Nazis, those that oppressed women and made the deplorable experiments possible. Kelly does this in a way that humanizes her.
Herta begins the book as someone who is understandable and almost admirable as she works as a dermatologist but wants to be a surgeon. She fights for a position as a woman in a man’s world of medicine. At first, the Reader understands her willingness to find any medical position to help support her dying father and disapproving mother and to be recognized for her medical expertise.


In some ways, Kelly writes Herta as similar to Michael Moriarty's character, Erik Dorff in the 1978 miniseries, Holocaust, someone who is brilliant but desperate and uses their talents to aid the Nazis, leaving their consciences at the door while trying to justify these horrible deeds.

When Herta begins at Ravensbruck, she still retains some humanity by becoming nauseous at the treatment. She starts to feel sympathetic towards one of the victims who is a painter and a medical aid during the surgeries. However, her humanity slams down as she willingly operates on these women.

Herta sees them as less than human, making it easier for her to justify cutting them up and using medical experiments that she knows could permanently injure and possibly kill them. She uses all of the Fallacies like “I was following orders,” “They are our enemies, or “Others have done worse,” refusing to accept her responsibility in the matter. It is telling that the more monstrous she gets, the more she disappears in the narrative to the point that she doesn't narrate the book at all after the war is over. She has run out of excuses and fallacies, so the book is done with her. Once Herta becomes inhuman, it becomes impossible to identify with her. We can only understand who she was before and how she got into Ravensbruck, and not her justifications for remaining or having no conscience afterwards.

By far the strongest character and the one that receives the most attention is Kasia. Unlike Caroline and Herta, she is fictional but she is based on several of the women imprisoned in Ravensbruck. Her trajectory is the most meaningful and transforms her from a naive girl to a mature woman.

At the beginning of her story, Kasia is a young schoolgirl, a member of the Girl's Guide, and is only concerned about obtaining the attention of her crush, Pietrick, a boy at her school. When the Nazis invade the city of Lublin, she takes action as a courier by passing notes between spies.
When she is sent to Ravensbruck, Kasia is filled with rage and hatred at the people who did this to her. She contrasts with her sister, Zusanna who is very passive and quiet and looks for a spiritual connection to her captivity and her mother who uses her half-German background as leverage to find favor with her captors. Instead, Kasia is angry and mentally wants to fight against her surroundings even if her body no longer can.

Kasia is the one who benefits the most from the post-war section. While Caroline sympathizes with the Rabbits and uses her wealth and connections to aid them and Herta disappears locked away in her terrible deeds and weak fallacies, Kasia suffers both physically and mentally. Her legs still give her tremendous pain as she limps. Most of all, she has PTSD.

Kasia is still angry and filled with hatred for what happened. She constantly has to snap a band to her wrist to keep her temper in check and has a hard time bonding with her husband and daughter. The Soviet occupation of Poland doesn't help either as Kasia realizes that her country traded one tyrant for another.

She has trouble trusting Caroline when she offers her help and while they are in America, Kasia feels separation anxiety when Zusanna falls in love with Caroline's chef, Serge.

Kasia and the other's arrivals in America gives them and Caroline a strong finish. Caroline gets a sense of purpose in her role as a philanthropist when she finally she sees for herself the improvements that she made in the survivor's lives.
Kasia feels a sense of freedom denied to her in Poland and feels her hatred dissipate knowing that there are people who care about her and want to help her.

The book makes it clear that Kasia is learning to let go of her past but still has a long way to go. She isn't quite ready to forgive her enemies, but will confront them if need be.
Kasia recognizes Herta, who unfortunately continues her medical career. She speaks to her in a way that quietly acknowledges the cruel injustice that Herta inflicted, but also conceals the vengeful hatred that Kasia feels.
This is a moment that is reflective of Kasia’s maturity in putting the past behind her as she holds the doctor accountable for the damage that she did.

Lilac Girls humanizes the story of the Ravensbruck Rabbits and turns them and their rescuer, Caroline Ferriday into memorable individuals. It is a great WWII historical novel, one of the best.