Affinity Konar's novel, Mischling, is very loosely based on the imprisonment of Eva and her twin sister at Auschwitz. I read it, and it's excellent.
@mountaineer Did the twin sister survive?
One of my mother's cousins was a MP in Berlin right after the end of WW-2,and he ended up marrying a homeless "displaced person" that the US were "housing" and trying to re-unite families that were split apart. She was a German Jew from Berlin,and it turned out that everybody in her family died in one of the camps,but her. She had the tattoo on her arm and never once talked about her time in the camps or anything else related to Germany. To the best of my knowledge everybody in the family had better sense than to ask her about it.
MY suspicion is that since she was a attractive teen girl that she was used to pleasure the guards. She never had any children,so I suspect they operated on her so none of the German guards would father a half-Jewish child.
It turned out that her family had been VERY wealthy before the Nazi's confiscated all their real property and bank accounts,and some time during the 50's her family property in West Berlin was returned to her. She even refused to go back to Berlin to sell it. Had a broker sell it for her and forward the money to her.
Turns out the penniless and homeless girl my mother's cousin married morphed into a wealthy woman. She got even wealthier after the collapse of East Germany and the family land there was returned to her. Or at least I am assuming it was returned to her. If it was I am absolutely certain she sold it all without going there.
Neither he nor she worked another day in their lives. They lived in some Jewish enclave in New York in the summer,and another in Florida during the winter. They would usually stop off and visit with us coming or going every year,always driving a new Lincoln. The even bought the lot next to my parents house in case they decided to move there.
They also owned and raced race horses,but I had no interest in that and never asked about it.
Not that any of this seemed to make any difference to her. She was one of the saddest people I have ever met in my life and seemed to just go along with what her husband wanted to do because nothing made any difference to her.
They are both long dead now,and since they never had any children,I suppose all their property and money went to some charity.
I also happened to get a chance to view some of the captured Nazi camp films when I was in the army. Stuff the Nazi's filmed that was "too raw" to show to the public. IMHO,the word "monsters" is over-used,but not when used in conjunction with the word "Nazi". I am getting so mad right now I am a little dizzy from just thinking about this crap.
BTW,there was a VERY interesting book written about the last Hanburg Oceanliner and it's last trip to Cuba with a load of Jews whose American relatives bribed the Nazi leadership to allow them to leave. It was written primarily by one of the Jews that was on the ship,and who survived the war. Has some photos of his fellow passengers,too.
Come to find out,this "selling Jews for cash" program had been going on for a while. How it worked was prominent,or suspected prominent Jewish families went to one specific concentration camp,and the Nazi party took their names and the names of their relatives living outside of Germany,and contacted the relatives and opened negoiations on freeing them for a price for each family member freed. Once the Nazi's got the money from enough families to fill up a ocean liner,the ship would then sail to Cuba and anchor in the harbor at Havana. None of the passengers were allowed on Cuban soil,but the German agents in the crew went ashore to handle the bank transfers and make sure all the money was paid.
Most of them were obviously going to the US,but some went to countries in South America where they had relatives to sponsor them.
The US Embassy was handling the paperwork for the ones going to the US. Technically,I guess this was illegal because it was a time of war and this could be seen as trading with the enemy,but suddenly it was shut down. The people aboard the ocean liner (Hamburg Line,IIRC) never found out why or who it was responsible for it,but suddenly there were no US visas forthcoming,despite the bribes already being paid and the money in the banks.
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They sat there in the harbor for a couple of weeks while the Nazi agents from the Ocean Liner and someone in authority in America passed messages back and forth via the Embassy,but what ended up happening was every Jew on the boat but the ones with relatives in Cuba were sent back to Germany,and straight back to a concentration camp. Most died as a result.
I wrote a book review once about this book while I had it in my hands,but can't remember now the title of the book or where it is. If anyone is interested,I will try to remember to look for it and post a report on it here on TBR.
BTW,the ocean liner survived the war after being tied up at the harbor in Hamburg after returning. Seems like part of the deal was they had free passage from US warships and our allies while the "Jews for cash" exchange was going on,but when that ended it never left port again. It was lightly damaged during the Allied bombing of Hamburg,and was cut up and sold for scrap after the war ended. I am guessing there weren't too many tourists wanting to take vacation trips on German liners in 1946.
BTW,I THINK the title of the book was "The Last Ship".
