The Girl Who Survived

By: Ellie Midwood

Narrated by: Alison Campbell

Germany, 1941: “We live together, or we die together.” A novel that will stay with you forever, The Girl Who Survived tells the inspiring true story of Ilse Stein, a German Jew who was imprisoned in a ghetto - and who fell in love with the man she was supposed to loathe.

For 18-year-old Ilse, life is unrecognizable. A year ago, she wasn’t forced to wear a star on her clothes. A year ago, her parents were alive, not yet killed by their own countrymen. A year ago, she had her freedom.

Now, at the break of dawn, she steps off the cattle train into a Minsk ghetto. This is Ilse’s new home: trapped by barbed wire, surrounded by SS guards she is forbidden to look in the eye, with no choice but to trade the last of her belongings for scraps of food. Sentenced for the crime of simply existing, she doesn’t expect to live past the summer.

Yet the prisoners in the ghetto refuse to give up - the underground resistance is plotting their escape. Ilse’s first act of defiance is smuggling from the munitions factory, slipping bullets into the lining of her pockets.

But this is just the beginning.... When Ilse meets Wilhem, a local SS administrative officer, she never dreams that her greatest rebellion will be falling for him. Wilhem promises that she will survive, even if the cost is his life. But in a world of such danger, daring to love is the most dangerous risk of all....

Fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Choice, and Orphan Train will be completely gripped by this heartbreaking tale. Based on a true story, this powerful novel shows that love is stronger than terror, and that when life takes everything from you, death is not to be feared....

This book was previously published as No Woman’s Land.

©2021 Ellie Midwood (P)2021 Bookouture, an imprint of Storyfire Ltd.

WW II fictional story based on fact

Follows the same stories written about this time. Struggles of the Jewish, someone taken under the wing by a soldier. I’m not gonna say “and they lived happily ever after” because they still had many hardships to overcome but…

It was good

I enjoyed the book and the performance. Easy to understand, I liked at the end the epilogue

It reads likes historical fiction.

Doesn’t always sound true or they are the two luckiest people in ww2. And one being a Jew and one a minor junior officer.who has own big office seems to do what he wants. If it is true I needed far more of an epilogue than I got. What happened to major players after the war like her two sisters and some of the others. ILL give her credit for very mild sex scene, little if any profanity and likable characters. But I do like this author a lot but I like her fiction better

A little difficult to follow

The story was a little difficult for me to follow with the names of so many different characters coming and going throughout the book. The story was intriguing, but the ending was a little bit of a let-down.. The Book of Lost Names was much better, I highly recommend that one!

Not Believable Boring Love Story

Ridiculous. can't understand how this book got such good reviews. besides the boring ridiculous details, the "love story" is fictional. the real Ilsa Stein never loved Shultz, love wasn't stronger than hate, distorted facts minimizes the horrific sacrifice the real Ilsa made.