A Long Walk Home

 Strauss, Gwen.  The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi 

         Germany.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9781250239297

Are you looking for a true adventure tale of female Resistance fighters in World War II?  Then you are in the right book!  Gwen Strauss recounts the trek that her great-aunt Helene Podliasky and eight other Resistance fighters made across Germany at the end of World War II. 

Helene Podliasky, Suzanne, Maudet, Nicole Clarence, Madelon Verstijnen, Guillemette Daendels, Renee Lebon Chatenay, Josephine Bordanava, Jacqueline Aubery du Boulley, and Yvonne Le Guillou were the nine Resistance fighters who had been captured by the Germans in France and transported to Ravensbruck concentration camp, then to a Liepzig work camp where they manufactured panzerfausts for the German army.  They did what they could to sabotage the shells by under-heating them.  In April 1945, the women were marched out of Liepzig heading west away from the oncoming Russian army.  The nine escaped from the column several days into the trip when the guards failed to keep everyone together.  They made their way west by hook, by foot, and by luck.  Some folks they encountered were helpful, some were hateful, but nothing stopped the women from finally reaching the American lines on April 21st and were taken to Colditz.  They later made their way back to Paris and worked on resuming their lives.  

Gwen Strauss manages to incorporate the lives of each women into the flow of the story in a way that embellishes rather than distracts from the narrative flow.  She hooks the reader by opening with the escape and then switches to discussing her great-aunt.  Each chapter moves the narrative along while highlighting another of the nine women.  She concludes the book by providing information on their lives after the return to France.  

The Nine is more than just another tale of heroism, but rather a reminder of all the unsung heroines of the French Resistance that do not get the credit for their hard work, their sacrifice, and their suffering.  Read this tale to have your views on the French Resistance change.