My Enemy’s Cradle by Sara Young – 365 pages
Book Blurb:
Cyrla’s neighbors have begun to whisper. Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke’s soldier has disappeared, and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their fathers’ custody–or taken away.
And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. A note is left under the mat. Someone knows that Cyrla, sent for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. She must choose between certain discovery in her cousin’s home and taking Anneke’s place in the Lebensborn–Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy’s lair, can Cyrla escape before they discover she is not who she claims?
Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, My Enemy’s Cradle keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.
My Review: 4 stars
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I thoroughly enjoyed this book as it was about the Nazi Lebensborn Project which I was completely unfamiliar with. I loved the author’s voice and her use of poetry within the text. This book will take you to a different account of WW2 as you learn about these women and the predicaments they find themselves in surrounding this Aryan birthing center. Slightly wrapped up ending, but still a good book.
Quotes I liked:
Sometimes she was careless with my feelings—not in cruelty, but in the innocent way that beautiful girls sometimes have, as if being thoughtful were a skill they had never needed to learn. But when she did think of me, her sweetness, completely unmeasured, would fill me with shame.”
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What a different take on so many of the WW2 books that I’ve read. Very interesting and informative. I really enjoyed it.
Marilyn B.