A Flower in Auschwitz

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A touching note arrived via the website. It was challenging to share this true historical drama set in Nazi Germany, one of the worst periods in history. I met and spoke with many death camp survivors as a Baby Boomer. I had put this project on hold several times, fearful of entering the Holocaust realm, but I realized that of roughly 250,000 Holocaust survivors, I able to share one beautiful ending to the largest atrocity in history. 

The original diaries have been meticulously reviewed multiple times. Despite damage and the loss of pages before her initial entry, the facts and family accounts are enough to paint a thorough portrait of this exceptional woman about a German woman who was sent to Auschwitz with her husband, a doctor, and an SS captain. The woman nursed at Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1943 to 1944 and during that time, fell in love with a Jewish music store owner in Auschwitz, Poland. In her diaries, she prepares the Polish woman’s Auschwitz escape after her capture. From Camp Two, they left Poland through Nazi occupied territories to Lesvos, Greece, for safety. A five-year-old girl was rescued from the gas chamber during their trip and adopted when her family couldn’t be found. They stayed together in Rome until their 1980s deaths after hiding on Lesvos Island until Germany surrendered. The girl saved the diaries and offered to publish them. Given the tragedies of that time, it is an honor to tell the story of a solitary flower among foul-smelling weeds.

The family who told this genuine story only asked to change the protagonists' names. The family requested anonymity. Similarities to real people—past or present—are coincidental. It was also determined to change all identities, even though many Nazi war criminals were convicted quickly after the war without affecting the plot, but one was not and remained unknown until his death. The German manuscripts were meticulously translated. Metric measures were converted to imperial for English readers.