Book Review

Sisters in Sorrow: Voices of care in the Holocaust

N Engl J Med 1999; 340:574February 18, 1999

Article

Sisters in Sorrow: Voices of care in the Holocaust
By Roger A. Ritvo and Diane M. Plotkin. 314 pp. College Station, Tex., Texas A & M University Press, 1998. $35.95. ISBN: 0-89096-810-1

Sisters in Sorrow is a vital and compelling book. Many books have been written about the Holocaust, and many more will be written: what makes this book essential reading? Sisters in Sorrow gives voice to the women who cared for the sick in the all-encompassing darkness of the Nazi extermination camps. Much has been written about Nazi doctors and those who worked with them, but almost nothing has been available about those who tried to heal and to give life and hope to the victims of the Holocaust.

This book attempts to understand the survival skills and techniques used by women in adapting to a cruel environment. Women seem to cope with such circumstances differently from men. The women interviewed for this book exhibited extraordinary survival skills, which apparently arose from their experiences as homemakers, nurturers, and care givers. Despite their own suffering and humiliation, each of the women interviewed rose above her own personal hell to help others live, even though keeping them alive could and often did mean eventual extermination. Why these women did what they did and how they did it are at the core of their stories.

The women's personal narratives are filled with medical accounts of illness, disease, healing, and death. We are witness to personal anguish, doubt, and the existential contradiction of keeping children alive so that they could work as slaves and, at the same time making sure they were unable to travel as long as possible, in the hope that their situation would change. This book contains accounts of aborting fetuses to save women's lives as well as stories of simple acts of healing and kindness.

Many of these stories have never been told before. Their power is a quiet one, that of day-by-day accounts, of medical case after medical case, as if one were reading the files in a doctor's office. The horrors are told simply. These stories are testimony to the human spirit as healing and life-sustaining.

These women rebelled against fear and did not permit themselves to give in to despair. As one woman stated, “It was our endeavor to be true to ourselves, to fulfill our humanitarian mission, even in this inferno, but also the knowledge that together with you and next to you there were women of many nationalities, each one of them determined to remain a human being in the death camp.” The authors note that the women “were often able to bond with one another, giving each other strength and the ability to withstand their common suffering.” This book should be read by everyone. For nurses, doctors, and all other health care providers, these stories are challenging accounts and personal narratives that speak directly to the heart and soul.

The medical paradox that emerges is that of murder and mutilation, on the one hand, and mercy and care, on the other, of Nazi physicians who caused horror and death through experimentation, and doctors and nurses among the women prisoners who attempted to comfort and heal. How did this paradox come about? Why? What can we learn from those who healed and cured? For all health care providers, this paradox remains a challenge.

Through the stories that these women tell, we witness heroism in the simplest acts of kindness and healing. Healing itself becomes an act of resistance to horror and human degradation. This is part of the story of resistance, for these women are victims who do not become victimizers or mired in grief and despair. In the simplicity of their medical narratives, an exalting testimony is given.

Sheldon Zimmerman, D.D.
Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, OH 45220