Courage isn't having the strength to carry on - it is going on when you don't have the strength.
-- Napoleon Boneparte.
Defiance, fortitude, belief and above all courage.
This is the touchstone of an incredible narrative that in the throes of Nazi-devastated Europe ties nine women together in their long march through Hitler's valley of death to ultimate freedom.
Their stories are told in the style of investigative reportage and literary nous and inventiveness, assiduously seeking the past and pursuing the story line through to the denouement of the present day.
Gwen Strauss has not only compiled a factual account of French Resistence heroism but presents a fascinating insight into the conditions that faced not only the prisoners, their captors, the oppressors and then the local population itself as it coped amid the ravages of conflict.
Her heroines are nine young women, taken prisoner in the later days of the war and forced into the dehumanising slavery of the concentration system.
The writer has taken memories of her great aunt, the leader figure
of " the Nine", to initiate an exhaustive search through archived material to put together the provenace of the group of women who as young girls in the Resistence faced certain capture and containment.
She then presents each women's background, their early life; their ordeal by war and then ultimately their life after freedom.
This is a tale of bondage and of bonding; how the prison group became a unit of determination to survive and to escape their ordeal.
The reunions with family and friends after the " death march" touches the soul, both poignant and pertinent.
The Nine is a war story of great difference and inport.
A notable contribution to understanding the fundamental desire to overcome and to survive.
-- Napoleon Boneparte.
Defiance, fortitude, belief and above all courage.
This is the touchstone of an incredible narrative that in the throes of Nazi-devastated Europe ties nine women together in their long march through Hitler's valley of death to ultimate freedom.
Their stories are told in the style of investigative reportage and literary nous and inventiveness, assiduously seeking the past and pursuing the story line through to the denouement of the present day.
Gwen Strauss has not only compiled a factual account of French Resistence heroism but presents a fascinating insight into the conditions that faced not only the prisoners, their captors, the oppressors and then the local population itself as it coped amid the ravages of conflict.
Her heroines are nine young women, taken prisoner in the later days of the war and forced into the dehumanising slavery of the concentration system.
The writer has taken memories of her great aunt, the leader figure
of " the Nine", to initiate an exhaustive search through archived material to put together the provenace of the group of women who as young girls in the Resistence faced certain capture and containment.
She then presents each women's background, their early life; their ordeal by war and then ultimately their life after freedom.
This is a tale of bondage and of bonding; how the prison group became a unit of determination to survive and to escape their ordeal.
The reunions with family and friends after the " death march" touches the soul, both poignant and pertinent.
The Nine is a war story of great difference and inport.
A notable contribution to understanding the fundamental desire to overcome and to survive.