The Secret Holocaust Diaries by Nonna BannisterMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The title may make many to expect the memoir of a Jewish concentration camp survivor. This life story is actually a bit different path through the horrors of the Holocaust and their precursors. It is actually a biography of a childhood starting from warmth and security in the well-to-do family of royalist supporters after the fall of the czars and the rise of Bolshevism. Fond Christmas memories and early indoor toilets is cut short by Hitler's incursion into the Ukraine. At this point, Nonna and her parents have two enemies: the Nazis and the Stalinists that see them as implicit collaborators for not withdrawing ahead of the advance of the Wehrmacht. Nonna details a couple of times her childhood memory of Red Army planes strafing Ukrainian citizens. The intensity of the fear of Stalinist reprisal is seen from the fact that after leaving her brother and losing her father, boarding a train to go work in the Third Reich with the retreating Germans is actually seens as the wisest option. The work camp is hellacious and Nonna's mother has her painting and piano playing skills extracted out of her until, after having her arms and fingers broken at Ravensbrück concentration camp she was killed there. Apparently, this sharp turn into the lethal Holocaust machine was caused by her attempts to save a Jewish baby on that ill-fated train ride.
Through astute awareness and a gift for languages, Nonna survives the work camp and the war, largely thanks to crippling diseases which places her in the care of nuns who protect her first from the Nazis, then the vengeful Russians.
This audiobook edition includes moving interviews with Nonna's son and husband as well late '90s audio of Nonna relating some of her Holocaust experiences to her family.
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