THE BOOK FAIR

Review:

Rena and Danka Kornreich, identified as numbers 1716 and 2779 in the Auschwitz Death Camp, prevail against death to survive the terror and horror of the Holocaust.

The Germans conquer Poland in 1939.  The sisters, born in Tylicz, Poland, in the early 1920’s, are sent to Czechoslovakia, to survive the war.  The presumed safe harbors out of Poland did not exist.   Rena, hides with a family in Hummene, Czechoslovakia, near the Polish Border.  Her sister, Danka, flees to Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, with relatives, near the Austrian border.

 

Rena, to save the family who hid her, decides to give up, and volunteers for a “work” camp, as decreed by Nazi law.  Rena wears her best suit and new white boots intending to make a good impression for work.  Rena only realizes the fallacy of her error in judgment when she is shoved onto a cattle car with scores of others.  Alone and petrified, she maintains the hope of a job offer in the camp, and knowing the German’s value order and cleanliness, tries to keep her boots clean.

A short time later, in Auschwitz, dressed in the uniform of a dead Russian soldier, Rena will see an SS woman wearing her beautiful boots.  Her clothes and belongings will be shipped to Germany, as will all the prisoner’s belongings, trainload after trainload, for years to come.

Rena kept her eye out for her sister, afraid that it would not be long before a transport carrying Danka, would arrive to Auschwitz.  Rena landed in the Auschwitz Death Camp on the very first transport, on March 26, 1942.

Rena’s fears proved correct.  She did not wait long.  The cattle car transports filled extermination camps, emptying Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia of Jews.

Two days after Rena’s arrival, on March 28, 1942, Danka arrived to Auschwitz, with thousands of bewildered Jews, frightened, hungry, thirsty and tired, to a place of hell, hard labor, starvation, disease and death, the shouts of the soldiers, the lash of the whip and the attack of frenzied dogs.

Spotting her sister in one of the transports, Rena saves Danka, taking her under her wing, and keeps her alive for three years.  The women learn how to save the tiniest ration of food, avoid beatings, cover wounds and help those who they can, survive.  A wound could mean certain death.

Of all the horrors in Auschwitz, the one prisoner’s feared most were the selections, the decisions made after roll call as to who would live and who would die that day.  Prisoners were worth little; a damaged prisoner was worthless.

Rena’s promise to Danka was that she that she would never leave her alone in the nightmare of Auschwitz, and that she would not allow her to die alone.  If one were selected for death, the other would follow.

One small comfort Rena cherished in Auschwitz was hearing the language of her fellow Poles, who tried to help each other in the camp, by passing food to and stealing medicine for the sick, even under threat of torture and death.

"Rena’s Promise," is the story of her and Danka’s survival and as well a testament for the many who did not survive.