Born Survivors

The Nazis murdered their husbands but concentration camp prisoners Priska, Rachel, and Anka would not let evil take their unborn children too—a remarkable true story that will appeal to readers of The Lost and The Nazi Officer’s Wife. Born Survivors celebrates three mothers who defied death to give their children life.

Eastern Europe, 1944: Three women believe they are pregnant, but are torn from their husbands before they can be certain. Rachel is sent to Auschwitz, unaware that her husband has been shot. Priska and her husband travel there together, but are immediately separated. Also at Auschwitz, Anka hopes in vain to be reunited with her husband. With the rest of their families gassed, these young wives are determined to hold on to all they have left—their lives, and those of their unborn babies. They concealed their condition from Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, and were forced to work, living in fear of their pregnancies being detected.

In April 1945, Priska gives birth. She, her baby, and her friends from Auschwitz, are sent to Mauthausen concentration camp on a seventeen-day train journey. Rachel gives birth on the train, and Anka at the camp gates. Despite believing they will die, a miracle occurs as the gas chamber runs out of Zyklon-B, and the Allies approach. The SS flee, and the three mothers and their newborns survive.

On the seventieth anniversary of Mauthausen’s liberation, biographer Wendy Holden recounts this extraordinary story of survival.