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

by H. Macadam

Caroline Moorehead (Foreword)

A Pen America Literary Award Finalist
A Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee
An Amazon Best of the Year Selection

The untold story of some of WW2’s most hidden figures and the heartbreaking tragedy that unites them all. Readers of Born Survivors and A Train Near Magdeburg will devour the tragic tale of the first 999 women in Auschwitz concentration camp. This is the hauntingly resonant true story that everyone should know.
 
On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents’ homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women—many of them teenagers—were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for the Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few would survive.
 
The facts of the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz are little known, yet profoundly relevant today. These were not resistance fighters or prisoners of war. There were no men among them. Sent to almost certain death, the young women were powerless and insignificant not only because they were Jewish—but also because they were female. Now acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their poignant stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women’s history.
 
Includes a foreword by Caroline Moorehead, NYT bestselling author of A Train in Winter!
 
“A fresh, remarkable story of Auschwitz on the 75th anniversary of its liberation.  An uplifting story of the herculean strength of young girls in a staggeringly harrowing situation.”
—Kirkus
 
“Intimate, harrowing… This careful, sympathetic history illuminates an incomprehensible human tragedy.”
—Publishers Weekly

• ISBN10: 0806539364
• ISBN13: 9780806539362
• Publish Date: 31 December 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Kensington Publishing
• Imprint: Citadel Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 480
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9780806539362

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

999 is the meticulously researched story of the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz from Slovakia in 1942. Due out 31st Dec 2019 from Kensington Books, it's 417 pages and will be available in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook formats.

The writing was riveting and emotionally difficult to read in some places. Especially in light of the trends in modern politics, and the fact that it's all too believable that it could happen again, I felt an undercurrent of urgency reading this book. It was compelling and the third person narrative put an accessible human face on the history.

Most of the books I've read about the Holocaust seem to have been a lot more focused on the male dominated parts of the war, the Holocaust, and the history. This book seemed a lot more personal to me.

Really well written, full of annotations and a bibliography for further reading. This would make a superlative resource in an academic setting as well as an important personal read.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.