There are many successful historical fiction novels that explore aspects of WWII history but BLOCK 42 shines much overdue light on some of the least-known but most shocking experiences faced by women in Nazi concentration camps.
Among the endless horrors endured by millions in places like Auschwitz, a special hell was reserved for women forced into sexual in brothels inside the Third Reich's infamous concentration camps. In a twisted incentive for the male prisoners forcibly conscripted in keeping the death factories murdering at peak efficiency, these women were forced to have sex with them, creating a warped reality where victims victimized victims.
Also not widely-known was the fact that many Aryan-looking Polish children were kidnapped and permanently torn from the arms of their true families and sent to be Germanized by childless Nazi couples.
Please meet author of BLOC 42, Debrianna Obara. In her novel, she follows young Polish lovers Aniela and Henryk as they navigate the brutal occupation of their beloved homeland, facing sinister forces and nearly insurmountable challenges in their plight to keep themselves and their family alive. In shocking brew of romance, espionage, kidnapping, sexual exploitation and informed by her own family's heritage.
Industry Reviews
In Obara’s novel, a young Polish woman shows indomitable courage in the face of the occupation of her country during
World War II.
In 1930, Aniela Bartosz (née Majewska) has a wonderful life in Kraków. She’s married to a good man, Henryk Bartosz, and
they have a beautiful daughter, Wanda. But when the Nazis march into Poland, the Bartoszes’ dream turns into a
nightmare. Aniela’s father, Professor Bogdan Majewski, is arrested with the whole faculty of his university and dies in a
labor camp; Henryk goes off to join the defense forces and then the resistance against the Nazis. Strong-willed Aniela is
seen as a troublemaker by the Nazis and winds up in Auschwitz—but before that happens, little Wanda is taken from her
mother and given to a German family to raise as their own. Aniela later becomes the secretary of a camp functionary
named Joachim Beckmann, who rapes her and then convinces himself that he’s in love with her; she suffers through this
because he promises that he’ll try to find out what happened to Wanda. Later, however, she’s sent to Blok 42, the camp
brothel for Polish prisoners. Blok 42 was a real place at Auschwitz, and the author’s discovery of this fact inspired the
novel. Obara is Polish American and the daughter of immigrants, so she knows the culture of the Bartoszes well, and her
prose is skillful throughout, as when she describes a bombing as “obliterating...men in an arc of chaotic energy.” And she
captures the arrogance and cruelty of the Nazis, as well their blind hypocrisy, as when Beckmann warns Aniela that
Russians have no ethics. Aniela is a strong and memorable character who achieves “a fundamental belief in...what that
life was worth.” The book’s last lines are truly stunning.
A vivid and insightful historical novel by a debut author.
