We all know of the horrors that took place in Europe during WWII, and with this read we put faces on those who ended up in Auschwitz. Sadly, although fiction, this is based on fact, and we need to never forget!
There are so many emotions here, and with the hate being displayed, I love the women the author gives us, that give their all, they have love and compassion for their fellow men, and are will to go to their grave for others.
So much loss, and with my heart in my throat, I was page turning for answers, and looking for those who survived this madness, and for finding their loved ones!
The author did a great job of pulling me into this read and not letting go!
I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Bookoutour, and was not required to give a positive review.

I found this to be one of the most compelling and heart wrenching book that I have ever read. The characters are based on true people and what they had to endure during the german invasion. A few things were altered but the author at the end tells you what was fiction and what was fact.
It was well written and you soon got into the main characters. It is a book that I won't forget reading.

Lost Mothers

A truly inspiring story of courage and faith based on the true story of Stanislawa Leszczynska. A catholic polish women surviving against the odds in one of the most horrific death camps in the WWII holocaust. It is said that she birthed over 3000 babies in Auschwitz. Ana is a midwife in Lodz Poland, mother of 3 sons and wife. She is a devout catholic, but she helps all that need her help. when the German Nazi's invade Poland she continues to help the Jewish women although it is illegal to do so.

Ester is a Jewish nurse and a friend of Ana. Ester and Filip are married and newlyweds when they are forced to move to the Ghetto by the Germans.

Ana and Ester are both shipped to Auschwitz by the Germans. In the camp Ana works as a midwife and Ester as a nurse and Ana's assistant. When the Germans start taking the blonde babies to be sent to German families to be Germanized they start tattooing numbers on the babies so they can later be reunited with their mothers.

This is a heartbreaking story of these brave women, of the horrors they saw and were subjected to as well as the other's they befriended in the camps. Their fight just to stay alive and survive in the hopes that someday they can be reunited with their families. When all else was taken from them they survived on hope , faith and each other.

I cannot even start to imagine what these women saw and how they were able to endure the horrors. How hard it must have been for them. Every time I read a holocaust story I learn of new horrors that took place at the hands of the Nazi's.

I was truly inspired by how they kept their faith and their hope throughout their ordeal. It was a remarkable story and I would recommend it.

Thanks to Anna Stuart for writing such an inspiring story, to Bookouture for publishing it and to NetGalley for making it available for me to read and review.

The Midwife of Auschwitz was a beautifully heartbreaking piece of literature. I had never before thought about the countless pregnant women that were forced into concentration camps and the horrors they had to endure giving birth there. Anna Stuart’s novel is a stunning tale of friendship, bravery, hope, and love that was well researched and hard to put down.

The Midwife of Auschwitz:
4.5 stars

Note: As with any book focused on WWII, this book is both beautiful and heartbreaking. This book deals with a lot of tough subjects - death (including children), abuse and sexual trauma.

Ester is a young Jewish woman, recently in love when she finds herself being deported to a concentration camp. She ends up running into Ana, her Christian neighbor, who is suspected of helping Jews. Ester is a nurse and Ana is a midwife so when they arrive to the concentration camp, they are sent to the makeshift hospital to care for pregnant women. While doing this they form friendships that carry them through the war but also experience untold tragedies. One of these tragedies is the removal of (blonde haired) babies from their mothers to be given to "good" German families. Without giving too much away, Ester schemes up a way to hopefully reunite these babies with their birth mothers after the war.

While I've read a lot of WWII books, this is the first one I've read that discusses what happens to the mothers and babies in the concentration camps. As a mother myself, I found that aspect of the book hard to read, as I imagine most would. However, I found the characters in this book really enjoyable and liked a fresh perspective on what happened in the concentration camps.

Thanks, Netgalley, for this ARC.

While this book is beautifully written, it is also heartwrenching and an incredibly hard read. The horrors and atrocities that happened take a lot of mental energy to absorb and while I found the writing compelling, it was certainly a book that I had to take my time with. In hindsight, reading this book while pregnant was probably not the best idea and ended up in more tears and emotions than I already would have felt, but it was also humbling and made me feel so grateful for very different circumstances.

Ana and Ester are both incredibly noble and strong women who are wonderfully depicted. I found all of the characters to be well written and engaging. Ana is a fictional character based on a true woman, but one for whom we have little historical information about. Thus, the author took a lot of artistic liberties, but I felt she really honored her well and brought her to life.

It often feels wrong to rate a book that tore me up so much, so high. This book didn't make me feel good and I doubt it makes others feel well either, though the ending is great and filled with hope. However, it respectfully and so realistically covers tragic events that did occur and are important to know, rather than ignore. No matter how uncomfortable or heartbreaking. So, I wouldn't expect to enjoy reading this book yet it is a great, well-written book with many lessons and insights for the reader.

The Midwife of Auschwitz: Review
Genre: Historical Fiction
Format: E-ARC
Pub Date: May 21, 2022
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/stars

This isn’t a usual 5 star rating for me. Usually books I rate 5 stars are ones I’m super excited about and pretty much don’t shut up about. This one silently and completely broke my heart. I loved it, but I also hated it.

The writing is absolutely beautiful. There were many times I had forgotten I was reading and got totally sucked in with the poetic imagery and captivating phrases that the author, Anna Stuart, uses.
Some more things I loved:
💯dual perspective. Ana (inspired by a real Auschwitz midwife) and Ester share the main character role.
💯many times in the novel itself and the acknowledgments, Stuart gives honor to the suffering by acknowledging that one cannot understand the circumstances and events of Nazi brutality exactly without experiencing it oneself.
💯heavy Christian themes within.
💯Ana and Ester long for the greater good throughout the novel. The women truly desire good for all in the storyline, not just themselves. The selflessness is top notch.

There is so much more I could say, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t do this novel justice. If you love Historical Fiction, please read this one.

Read if you liked:
📖The Tattooist of Auschwitz
📖The Nightingale
⛔️It goes without saying that there are triggers than need to be considered before reading. While I don’t think these should keep anyone from reading this book, going in aware of them is important. Feel free to message me to find out what you might want to consider before picking this one up. If you’ve read any historical fiction or nonfiction about the horrors of the Holocaust, you can probably imagine a little of what you’ll encounter here.⛔️

Thank you Anna Stuart for yet another beautiful novel highlighting the absolutely heartbreaking and disgusting tragedies of the Holocaust.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the advanced readers copy.

The Midwife of Auschwitz follows the journey of 2 women, Ana and Ester. Ana is a Christian woman who's a practicing midwife in Poland. Ester is a young, newlywed, Jewish women training as a nurse. The story begins around the time of the occupation of Poland. Through a series of events in the ghettos and the resistance, the women end up imprisoned in Auschwitz together. Once they arrive, the women are tasked with caring for the pregnant women of the camp. Almost immediately they help deliver their first baby only to discover the horrors of Auschwitz first hand. Later, when a new program begins to take blonde babies from their imprisoned mothers and place them in German homes, the women find a way to rebel and mark the babies to hopefully find them again after the war. The women survive for 2 years in the camp, attending to approximately 3,000 deliveries before finally being liberated. They now have to find a way back to Poland to see who and what of their previous lives survived the war.


This book was heartbreaking and horrifying. I know to expect that from WW2 novels by now but wow was this one tough. I had surprisingly never considered how many women would become pregnant while in death camps or how many would arrive in that condition. (The care of laboring and postpartum mothers is a focus of this book but no prior knowledge of the subject is necessary) This book does an exceptional job describing the bleak conditions in Auschwitz and the absolute sadistic nature of the guards. I would recommend this book but be prepared for a very real depiction of the horrors found in Auschwitz Birkenau.

Łódź 1939: Ester is a nurse in the Łódź ghetto when by chance one evening, an anxious father brings her into his home to help his wife deliver a baby. Not having any midwife training, Ester seeks advice from Ana, who delivered Ester herself and live in Łódź outside the ghetto. With Ana’s help, Ester becomes better trained at helping to birth babies.

As the years progress and transporting of the Jews from the ghettos to work camps keep people on edge. Ana, due to rumored participation in the Resistance, is arrested and soon finds herself being put on a train to Auschwitz. She reconnects with Ester and together they are given the job of using their midwifery skills at the camp. Aghast that babies being born are immediately killed by drowning, Ana and Ester find their skills and oath to help those needing their assistance tested.

The Nazis then start to take those babies that look Aryan to live with German families in what was known as Lebensborn. Soon, Ester discovers that she is pregnant and doesn’t want to see her child killed or taken away. When the opportunity presents, she comes up with a plan to help those mothers live in hope that they might one day find their babies that are taken soon after birth by tattooing the mother’s number discreetly in their armpit. Will the plan work? Will Ester live long enough to one day see her child after the war is over?

While the content is heavy on a mother’s heart to think of what these brave women did while at Auschwitz, the story is one of determination and hope. You find yourself rooting for the women who band together and form a family in the bleakest of times to help each other survive. Fans of WWII historical fiction books will find themselves lost in the stories presented by Stuart. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#netgalley #arc #themidwifeofauschwitz #annastuart #bookouture

Shirley Chapel's review May 08, 2022 · edit
it was amazing
bookshelves: arc-copies, netgalley, wwii-fiction

If I were able to give this book more than five stars I certainly would. Not since reading The Hiding Place by Holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Boom have I read such a well researched and realistic book about life behind the locked gates and barb wire fences of a Nazi Jewish concentration and extermination camp. This is a fiction story about a part of world history that actually happened during WWII. I was completely drawn into this book almost from the beginning. There was one part of this story that I wished would have made the ending have a different outcome but not wanting to be a spoiler I’m not going to share here what it was. The story was riveting in some places and heart breaking to see how cruelly the occupants of Auschwitz-Birkenau were treated by the SS Nazi Soldiers and Prison guards who went out of their way to tantalize and make the lives of the Jewish and other prisoners more miserable. The guards would then stand back and laugh at their prisoners in their misery. I thought the book was original and informative. Definitely a page turner. After finishing this book I walked away with a better understanding of what really happened behind the walls of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Prison camp during the war years in occupied Poland.

This book is a fictional story about a Polish midwife named Ana Kaminski and a Jewish nurse, Ester Abrams. Ana worked underground with the Resistance to help get Jewish people out of the ghetto in Łódź Poland. Ester lived in the Jewish ghetto with her husband and family and worked at the makeshift hospital caring for the sickly and injured patients. Both ladies ended up being sent to the dreaded Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp . Their lives were spared because of their medical professions. Both worked together in the camp’s crowded maternity center. The Nazi officers would take the blonde haired perfect babies from their mothers and put them up for adoption with German married couples . Ana and Ester secretly tattooed these babies under their armpits with the same ID prison number that their mothers had, hoping that after the war they could be reunited once again with their rightful parent. It was a risk the midwife and nurse were willing to take so that the mothers could have some hope in such a dark and horrible place.

This is only a small part of the story but I want you to read this book and see for yourself what made it the best one I’ve read this year. I highly recommend it to readers of WWII fiction and fans of the Author. This book is scheduled to be released on 5/31/22.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of The Midwife of Auschwitz. All thoughts and opinions about the book are my own.

#themidwifeofauschwitz#netgalley

This is a must read, one of books of this year for sure. It is such a heart breaking story to find out what went on in 1943 in Auschwitz. You will need plenty of tissues to get through this real life story. Anna the author has a way with her words that makes you feel as though you are pulled into the story and don't want to stop reading. The emotions I went through reading this book were unbelievable, these poor women, I just wish I could do something for them. It was interesting to learn about being a midwife in that era too as I haven't read anything about their job role and such forth. This is historical fiction done brilliantly well. I loved it.

This is a emotionally riviting story based on true events during the Holocaust in the Auschwitz concentration camp. It pulls at the heart and drives home so many events that must be revealed so that events like this are never, never repeated.

I cried so much and find myself praying for the mother, children and innocent in the Ukraine today facing a similar situation. Why does war bring forth such horrible evils? May God grant us peace and punish the unjust.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bookoutune and the author for an advanced copy of this book in return for my honest review.

What a compelling book!

I admit that it took me a minute to get into this story, but once I did, it was only the obligations to tend to adulting matters that kept me from reading straight through.

Ana Kaminski, a Catholic woman living in Łódź in central Poland, west of Warsaw. Ana is a midwife and does her job with pride and perfection.

Ester Pasternak, a Jewish woman, is a medical student, studying to be a midwife. Ester meets Filip, and they fall in love and get married. Ester carries a secret with her to Auschwitz, one of which she isn't yet aware.

Not long after this, the Nazis invade Łódź and enclose our main characters in a ghetto there. Soon, Ester and Ana are shipped to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Filip is shipped to the work camp at Chelmno, in northern Poland.

The story follows Ana and Ester and the women they meet, both horrible women and good women, at Auschwitz.

There is so much more to this story, but my inability to put it all into words keeps me from fairly describing this book in terms it deserves.

This would be a remarkable fictional story about Ana on it's own and from the imagination of the author, but it is based on the true story of Stanislawa Leszczyńska, a midwife whose dedication and bravery in the face of unspeakable horror and brutality has been cause to try and have Leszczyńska declared a saint by the Catholic Church because of her selflessness in the face of such odds.

I find it difficult to let go of this story. It will stay with me as few other stories have.

Oh, my heart....This story of survival is in the worst of circumstances. Meet Determined Midwives verses Nazi Terror in this gripping saga. Don't pick up this book unless you have a free calendar for a whole day. You'll need that whole day to start and finish the book.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

With my favorite genre being historical fiction, in particularly fiction surrounding WWII, this seemed to be up my alley. Plus, I had read a book with a similar involvement of midwifery in it and found those parts particularly interesting. Anna Stuart writes quite well, and her characters became more and more compelling as the story continued. Overall, it was a very heartbreaking and disturbing read, especially with the knowledge that it is based on a true story. There were a balancing number of moments of comfort and family (both blood and found) that made the book less bleak (though it still manages to not "Hollywood-ify" the subject matter too terribly).

Overall, it was a fairly good read!

This heartbreaking, page turning book was vey well written. To think about 3,000 babies born in Auschwitz is unimaginable, but Anna Stuart brought this truth to light! The horrors that happened in the death camps were described through the 2 main characters of the story! Highly recommend to other readers!

The story centers around 2 women, Ester, a Jewish nurse and Ana, a Christian midwife during World War 2. They're friends who celebrate each other's joys and then slowly, as the Germans invade, realize that they cannot avoid what is now a reality in their country,

Ester is newly married to her husband, Filip, just as the Germans take over the city of Lodz, and begin turning their lives upside down. They're sent to live in the ghettos in Lodz and their homes given away to new incoming German families. Throughout all of this, Ester remains positive and tries her hardest to stand up for what is right...without getting killed. Ana finds herself being reassigned as well, to a "better" home that was recently "liberated" from their Jewish owners. Ana finds herself distraught over how to help her Jewish friends against the injustice of the Nazis. She sends provisions over the fence and her family decides to join the Resistance and help as many Jews as they can escape. They successfully smuggle out Ester's sister, who needed a German superior who tried to take advantage of her. However, before they can help Ester and Filip get out, Ana and two of her sons are taken and arrested under suspicion of helping Jews.. Meanwhile, the Germans have started clearing out the ghettos, by taking children and the elderly.. Ester is trying to keep her mother's out of harms way but one day, they call for her and Ester cannot bear to let her mother go alone. She vows to walk her to the train and thinks that with her nurse's uniform she will be let back into the ghetto, but then, she is taken onto the train with her mother as well. By a twist of fate, her friend Ana, is being sent to the concentration camp on the same train and from that point on, they rely on one another to survive.

Their tale at the camp is a harrowing one, one that was hard to shake and escape, even in my dreams. It is so well written and parts had me almost to tears. The author really made you feel their emotions. I loved how this story was also told from the perspective of someone who was not a Jew, but simply punished because they couldn't stand by and not speak up for what was right.. Both women switched being in despair but they truly leaned on one another for strength. Highly recommend this book if you enjoy historical fiction.

4.5 stars

This is an emotional read about two midwifes, set against the horrors the Jews faced in Poland during WW!!. I've read many, many books in this genre, and this is one of my favorites in the past year. The details are vivid (which isn't always a good thing), and the development strong, as is the faith the characters display to get through each day. Children (particularly newborns) in the concentration camps is not a topic I've read much about, and I applaud Stuart for shining a light on the atrocities of the time. The book is inspired by the life of Stanislawa Leszczyńska. It's a story of hope, perseverance, and love, and fans of historical fiction, and WWII in particular, should add this one to their TBR piles.

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This ended up being a 3 star read. There are a few reasons on how I came to this rating.

Firstly, the writing was a little flat and choppy. There were also a lot of run on sentences happening in Part One which really didn't help me as a reader. I had a hard time trying to immerse myself into the story.
Secondly, this is your typical war story. It's a dark time in history and can be heavy. With the way the writing was done, I had trouble feeling any sort of emotional connection to the characters.
Lastly, I have read a lot of WW2 novels and I can say there are better books out there that can be read. Overall, this book is heartbreaking but lacked the proper writing to really have this book sink in for me.

A captivating book that I finished on one reading. Heart wrenching, and wondering if there will be a sequel.