It took me a long time to read this book. After I read the first few chapters, it sat on my bedside table for some weeks. My courage had failed me. I didn’t want to read about the transport to Auschwitz or the horrors there.

Remarkably, a few of the characters managed to stay alive for the three years that Auschwitz was open. “We opened Auschwitz and we closed it,” said one. They were smart and tough and lucky. No one can say more than that. And no one can say which of the three characteristics was more critical.

There were a few stories that could have been explored in more detail. We heard several times of Wunst, the SS guard who was in love with Helena, the Jewish prisoner. Love? Did she love him or exploit a situation that allowed her to survive? We know she married someone else but did testify on his behalf. Surely there’s a complicated story there, but we don’t hear it.

There is also passing reference to a brothel, possibly run by a guard who was a prostitute in her pre-Auschwitz days. Who were the prostitutes? Who were the patrons? Who made money? The Nazi ideology was that Aryans did not mix with the verminous Jews. How widely was that belief violated?

No Holocaust tale has a happy ending. But one learns that some of the girls survived and married and had children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. It’s not a tale of happiness, but it is a testament to resilience.