Heather Dune Macadam’s first book, co-authored with Rena Kornreich Gelissen, was Rena’s Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz. Rena’s Promise has been published throughout the world. Director of the Rena’s Promise Foundation, Macadam also sits on the advisory board of the Cities of Peace Auschwitz and is the producer/director of the documentary film 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz. Her work has been recognized by Yad Vashem in the U.K., the USC Shoah Foundation, the National Museum of Jewish History in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the Memorial Museum of Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland. Her writing has been featured in National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, on NPR, and in other major media outlets. She divides her time between New York and Herefordshire, England. Visit 999thefirstwomeninauschwitz on Facebook, @heatherdune on Twitter, or www.999themovie.com.
The Experts Praise 999
“Almost one thousand young Jewish women, some no older than
sixteen, were rounded up across Slovakia in the spring of 1942 and
told that they were being sent to do government work service in
newly occupied Poland, and that they would be away no more than a
few months. Very few returned. Macadam has managed to recreate
not only the backgrounds of the women on the first convoy but also
their day to day lives—and deaths—during their years in Auschwitz.
Books such as this one are essential: they remind modern readers of
events that should never be forgotten.”
—From the foreword by Caroline Moorehead, New York Times
bestselling author of A Train in Winter
“A staggering narrative about the forgotten women of the
Holocaust. In a profound work of scholarship, Heather Dune
Macadam reveals how young women helped each other survive one of
the most egregious events in human history. Her book also offers
insight into the passage of these women into adulthood, and their
children, as ‘secondhand survivors.’”
—Gail Sheehy, New York Times bestselling author of Passages and
Daring: My Passages
“An important addition to the annals of the Holocaust, as well as
women’s history. Not everyone could handle such material, but
Heather Dune Macadam is deeply qualified, insightful and
perceptive.”
—Susan Lacy, creator of the American Masters series and
filmmaker
“However much one reads about the Holocaust there is always
something more with the power to shock. The story of these teenage
girls is truly extraordinary. Congratulations to Heather Dune
Macadam for enabling the rest of us to sit down and just marvel at
how on earth they did it.”
—Anne Sebba, New York Times bestselling author of Les Parisiennes
and That Woman
“An important contribution to the literature on women's experiences
. . .With passion and extensive research, Heather Dune Macadam
gives the first official women’s transport to Auschwitz its
rightful place in Holocaust history.”
—Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, founder and executive director, Remember
the Women Institute
“A fresh, remarkable story of Auschwitz, on the 75th anniversary of
its liberation. Dune Macadam (co-author: Rena's Promise: A Story of
Sisters in Auschwitz, 1995) chronicles the tale of nearly 1,000
Jewish women from Slovakia, the first women to be shipped to the
Polish death camp. While not the majority of inmates, a majority of
the Slovakian Jews were sent there. The author makes great use of
her "interviews with witnesses, survivors, and families, and USC
Shoah Archive testimonies." Most readers have learned about the
many shocking aspects of the camps, including slave labor and other
countless deprivations, but the author shows us how every time a
train pulled in, there would be a selection, for work or
extermination; the same would occur at morning roll call. There was
no rhyme nor reason to the selection process; it was often just a
whim. Those women in this first shipment were tattooed beginning
with the number 1,000, but within a year, they were numbering
nearly 39,000. As Dune Macadam notes, there were some work
assignments that were safer and slightly more comfortable: sewing,
laundry, mail, clerical and, hospital. The most sought-after
assignment was sorting the clothes of new arrivals. Often, the
women would find a piece of bread or other contraband they could
carefully smuggle out. One woman found a tube of diamonds. When she
was caught, she claimed she was saving it for one of the Nazis in
charge; she got off, and he took leave, bought a farm, and never
returned. Throughout the book, readers will be consistently
astounded by the strength of these women. They fought desperately
to survive and supported each other, often literally holding up
friends and hiding sick inmates. "My goal," writes Dune Macadam in
an author's note, "is to build as complete a picture as I can of
the girls and young women of the first ‘official' Jewish transport
to Auschwitz." It's not easy reading, but consider that goal
achieved. An uplifting story of the herculean strength of young
girls in a staggeringly harrowing situation.”
—Kirkus
“In this intimate and harrowing account, historian and novelist
Macadam (coauthor, Rena’s Promise) reconstructs the lives of dozens
of young Jewish women who were on the first convoy to arrive at
Auschwitz in March 1942… This careful, sympathetic history
illuminates an incomprehensible human tragedy.”
—Publishers Weekly
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