999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz

Again, Ms Dune had presented us with a truly heartbreaking story, but one that needs told. We all need to remember.This book provided additional information that filled in some blanks from Rena's Promise, like the sisters names that went to the gas together after a selection. If you haven't read it, please pick it up. We find out more about Erna, Dina, Adele, and many other girls who would have been with Rena and Danka. I actually need to go back and re-read it now.How did people survived this? Why did some make it, and others didn't? Mostly, why so much evil? I just can't understand, and I just don't think anyone has the answer. Maybe there isn't just one answer. I don't know, but it breaks my heart. These girls were not much older than my daughter is now. (She's 11). The simple fact that this could have been my family, my loved ones, my baby, really humanized the Holocaust for me. These weren't just numbers or statistics. These were living, breathing people.This book needs to be in our high schools. It needs read by our politicians. It needs read by everyone. Anti-Semitism is on the rise again. Unbelievably, as survivors are dying off, people are forgetting not just the horrors the Jews endured, but homosexuals, gypsies, the disabled, Christians, and anyone else who opposed or was considered "unworthy" by Hitler, Himmler, and their supporters.Please read this book. Spend the $13.00. Pass it on to your friend, neighbor, spouse, (older) child, whom ever. Although she's to young now, I'm going to make an sure my daughter reads it. Our world today is starting to mirror the 1930's, let's do our part to stop it in its tracks!Ms Dune, please continue to write the survivor's stories. Please continue to spread the word so that this time in history isn't forgotten. Thank you.

I was deeply moved by Rena’s Promise, as there are hardly any books that are solely about what women endured in The Holocaust. But one thing I felt was lacking in the memoir, and thanks to this book now realize why Rena never elaborated or went in depth with, was more details and context on the events or things that the women went through or were subjected to in Auschwitz. It’s absolutely horrifying all the things that these incredible survivors went through, and despite all the untold trauma and abuse, they preserved despite all the ghastly and absolutely inhumane acts they had to witness and endure.It’s written extremely well, part memoir, and part historical textbook, the author noting that certain events none of the women seemed to remember, didn’t want to remember or really talk about, due to how traumatic and/or humiliating it was for them. Being a survivor of rape, I can totally relate. Sometimes the mind just shuts out certain events to protect itself. And some events, though remembered, are too traumatic and embarrassing to the survivors to want to relive. And these women were subjected to all these horrors 24/7 for 3 years.Heather Dune Macadam is an extremely compassionate author and writer. While she writes of the brutality, she also shows the humanity these women had, from helping each other, to difficult decisions each woman had to make, to save themselves or their friends from the SS or from death. I especially am grateful that she wrote of how it was for the surviving women afterward. I wish more authors would write about the what the women of the holocaust had to go through and their lives afterward. Too often it’s just men’s accounts, even though women were probably treated worse.Definitely recommend this book. Just brace yourself, because at times it does seem very bleak.

I am a child of holocaust survivors.. My mother was one of the 999. I learned so much that I didn't know and the extent of the author's efforts and research are to be commended. This is a significant piece of the holocaust historical record.

Incredible story told compellingly. The unique individuals described in this book make the stories come truly alive and stand out from the mind-boggling numbers we hear about. Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I raged at the horrors delivered by the REAL subhumans on truly human. The humanity shines through.

Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz was written by Heather Dune Macadam. This story is about the 999 young women from Slovakia who were taken from their homes to work for Germany. Instead, they were sent to Auschwitz. Here, they spent the rest of the war working for their own lives.This extraordinary book looks into the lives of these girls as they were snatched from their families. Their trip in the cattle cars to Auschwitz and ultimately to Birkenau is traced by the author. These girls were around the ages of 15-18 or so. They were told they were going to work in Germany. Their parents had no idea what happened to them. The author painstakingly researched to find these girls to speak to survivors. She reconstructs their lives very vividly. She leaves nothing out so the gruesome journey becomes vivid for the reader. She shows how being together helped them through this ordeal as they helped each other survive. She shows how propaganda and false news was used to manipulate people to not be concerned about the Jews nor wonder where they had been taken. When the war was over, they would be over here to help.The details are overwhelming making is necessary to stop and step away from reading before going back. Those same details are devastating to read about now and imagine although they occurred seventy years ago. In spite of everything, this book is almost magical in the way it bring their terrible world to life

Very interesting and sad

It's truly a miracle those women survived the holocaust. The author sent me through so many emotions...Thank you for this account of women's strength of spirit.

very true