The Midwife of Auschwitz

By June 1944, Ana delivers 2,000 babies in Birkenau without losing a mother or a child in birth. The residents hear rumors of the Allies progress against the Nazis. Several prisoners escape, fueling hope that they will tell the allies about their conditions, prompting rescue. Mala and her boyfriend, Edek, plan to escape the camp in daylight by pretending to be an SS officer and prisoner. Ana watches them escape, but three days later, they are brought back “in chains” (221). Distraught, Ana smashes herself into a wall until knocked unconscious.

Ester tries to clean the windows of Block 24, though she does not have the soap and water needed to remove the grime. She recognizes that her senses, including her mental acuity and her emotions, have dulled in Birkenau. She knows Ana also feels despair. Each day, three or four trains full of prisoners arrive, and most go directly to their deaths. She hears a scuffle and watches as a group of Jewish people from Łơdź beat Rumkowski, the former city elder who collaborated with the Nazis. Tomaz, Filip’s friend, is in the group. He shares a message of love from Filip, who works at the Chelmno camp. Nazis execute Tomas before Ester’s eyes.

While the message from Filip reinvigorates Ester, Ana loses her will to survive. Ana learns that guards will execute Mala before all of the women prisoners. Guards bring Mala to the gallows. Women shout out to Mala that they love her. She responds, “I love you all too. A wonderful emotion is it not, love? So much more nourishing than hate” (234). She shouts that the Allies are making progress, and they must continue to survive. Mala takes a blade she has hidden in her hair and slices veins in each arm. The Nazis command Ana to save her life. Ana and Ester wrap Mala’s slip around her arms, but not tightly enough to stop the bleeding. The Nazi matron Maria Mandel shoots Mala in the head. Ana realizes that she must continue living and saving everyone she can.

Naomi’s baby arrives quickly. Ester holds the newborn, whom Naomi names Isaac after her father. Ester decides they must find a way to keep the baby from the Lebensborn programme. A sudden explosion occurs in crematorium IV. The Jewish prisoners who run the crematorium planned the explosion and their escape. The distraction allows Ester to substitute the body of deceased infant for Isaac so that Klara believes Naomi’s baby is stillborn. The rest of the women conceal Ester and Isaac until Ester can safely give Naomi her son: “Ester vowed that, as this dark war battered its way to a conclusion, she would save baby Isaac for her friend. And for her own sanity” (246).

By the end of November, the crematorium remains inoperable, and trains bringing new prisoners stop arriving. Instead, the Germans use their prisoners to try to conceal their crimes. Many of the new women are pregnant. Ana notes “[a] certain delicious irony to the knowledge that, for the first time in its history, Birkenau would most likely be bringing more lives into the world than it dispatched” (248). Klara contracts a fatal case of tuberculosis and begs Ana for help. Klara threatens to tell the Nazis about baby Isaac. Klara says that all the women prisoners will move to the other side of the camp. Ana thanks her for the warning and meets with Naomi and Ester to devise a plan to protect Isaac. Ester covers Naomi with red splotches as if she has typhus, which causes the guards to stay away from her. The women relocate to the barracks where the Roma women stayed before they died. The women cheer softly when they manage to bring Isaac safely with them.

As Ana and Ester struggle with a difficult birth in the middle of a winter night, guards pound on the doors of the barracks and tell the women to come out. They say that everyone will be moving west. The prisoners must walk at night in frigid temperatures. Ana tells the guards that Margarite is in labor and cannot walk. The guard replies that she must remain behind. Ana says she will stay with her patient. Ester says she also has patients who cannot walk, and she must stay with them. The guard says they will die without electricity, water, and food. Naomi tries to remain behind, but the guards force her outside. Ester conceals Isaac. She commits herself to his care. After everyone leaves, Ana, Ester, and Margarite discuss how they can survive and decide to break into the Kanada—the room holding the goods of deceased Jews. Naomi returns to the barracks, explaining that she had concealed herself under a mound of bodies.

The remaining Nazi guards padlock the gates in the camps. They steal what they can from the Kanada and set it afire. The guards mock Ana and Ester for trying to find food and clothing. As the two women stand in the snow, they hear the shouting of children. They follow the noise to a barracks and break in. They find 50 children who have not had anything to eat or drink in more than two days. They help the children get snow for water. Ana speaks to a 16-year-old girl named Tasha who lost her family in Warsaw. She promises Tasha that they will all get out.

With the help of the older children, Ana, Naomi, and Ester find parts of the Kanada that did not burn. They provide warm clothing and firewood for the stove inside their shared barracks. They also discover an abandoned railcar with dried sausage and biscuits. As she prepares another expectant mother for childbirth, Soviet soldiers enter Birkenau, shocked at what they see: “‘Remember the first day we arrived?’ Ester murmured, turning to her. ‘I could not believe this place either’” (282).

Ester, Ana, and their patients relocate to the German hospital unit at Auschwitz, which is outfitted by the Red Cross with medical supplies, clothing, and food. Ester clings to every bit of news she hears about Łơdź. Naomi excitedly shares that she has been offered a train ride to Hungary, her first stop on the road back to Greece. Later, a man named Frank arrives with three horse-drawn carts, bound for Łơdź. The next morning, Ester and Ana board the carts and leave the camp.