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The Dawn of Hope: A Memoir of Ravensbrück
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About The Dawn Of Hope: A Memoir Of Ravensbrück
Product Description A holocaust survivor and tireless advocate for the world's poor shares her personal journey from the Ravensbru+a5ck concentration camp to the French Resistance and eventually, a life led improving the lives of the poorest of the poor. 35,000 first printing. From Publishers Weekly Arrested in Paris in 1944 because of her work in the Resistance movement, the niece of the former President of France, General Charles de Gaulle, relates in this short, stark memoir how she was shipped to the Ravensbr?ck concentration camp in a cattle car when she was in her early 20s. Possibly because she was a political prisoner rather than a Jew, Anthonioz was not immediately exterminated, but was kept in a constant state of fear that every day might be her last. In spare but powerful prose, she documents the condition of the 75 Polish women in the camp who were operated on without anesthesia by a surgeon who later deliberately infected their wounds with gangrene, tetanus and streptococcus. Anthonioz herself was subjected to beatings and near starvation conditions. After several months of performing backbreaking labor, however, she was mysteriously transferred to an area of the camp where inmates were treated less harshly. Shortly thereafter, she was put in a solitary confinement cell. Since she did not know the reason for these changes, Anthonioz expected to be executed momentarily. What kept her from falling into total despair was the kindness of a fellow inmate, a Jehovah's Witness who brought her meals and gifts from other French prisoners. A few weeks after Paris was liberated, she was released from Ravensbr?ck. In the 1950s, Anthonioz, who is the founder of the international organization Aid in Total Distress, began her lifelong commitment to easing the plight of the poor. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal An important addition to the growing list of Holocaust survival memoirs, this powerful book uniquely records the experiences not of a Jew but of a young Christian activist in the French Resistance, the niece of Gen. Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle Anthonioz joined the Resistance as a teenager, was captured by the Germans in 1943, and then spent time in one of France's most notorious prisons before being shipped to Ravensbr?ck. There she remained until near the end of the war, mostly in solitary confinement. The power of this reluctantly penned memoir stems from its brevity and reflectiveness. Rather than recount daily events or routines within the camp, she explores the "progressive destruction of what constitutes a human being" and the cruelty of fellow inmates who became barracks chiefs. Although the memoir ends with the mysterious circumstances of her release, it should be noted that the author, sometimes called "the French Mother Theresa," has devoted her life to the Fourth World MovementAan international organization dedicated to helping the poor and homeless worldwide. An uplifting account; recommended for public and academic libraries.AMarie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist The author of this very brief concentration-camp memoir is General de Gaulle's niece, and it's the name that will draw readers. In a present-tense narrative translated from the French, she re-creates her experience at age 24 in solitary confinement in the Ravensbruck women's prison bunker as news filters through that the Allies have landed in France. She remembers choking on the fumes from the nearby crematorium and witnessing prisoners beaten, murdered, and subjected to inhuman medical experiments. Even in the inferno, she's sustained by her Catholic faith and by the support of her friends among the inmates, who smuggle her messages and a shawl to keep her warm. What this account adds to the present flood of Holocaust memoirs are the glimpses the survivor provides of the various women prisoners and their roles in the French Resist
