999

The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz

by Heather Dune Macadam

Foreword by Caroline Moorehead

Published by: Kensington

Imprint: Citadel

464 Pages, 6.10 x 9.00 x 1.00 in

ISBN: 9780806539379
On Sale: 01/26/2021
HISTORY / Holocaust

$17.00 (USD)

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Praise

A PEN America Literary Award Finalist
A Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee
An Amazon Best of the Year Selection

The untold story of some of WW2’s most hidden figures and the heartbreaking tragedy that unites them all. Readers of Born Survivors and A Train Near Magdeburg will devour the tragic tale of the first 999 women in Auschwitz concentration camp. This is the hauntingly resonant true story that everyone should know.

On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women, many of them teenagers, boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service and left their parents’ homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Instead, the young women were sent to Auschwitz. Only a few would survive. Now acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women’s history.

“Intimate and harrowing. . . . This careful, sympathetic history illuminates an incomprehensible human tragedy.” —Publishers Weekly

“Against the backdrop of World War II, this respectful narrative presents a compassionate and meticulous remembrance of the young women profiled throughout. Recommended for all collections.” —Library Journal

“Staggering . . . profound. [Macadam’s] book also offers insight into the passage of these women into adulthood, and their children, as ‘secondhand survivors.’” —Gail Sheehy, New York Times bestselling author of Passages and Daring: My Passages

“Heather Dune Macadam’s 999 reinstates the girls to their rightful place in history.” —Foreword Reviews

“An important addition to the annals of the Holocaust, as well as women’s history. Not everyone could handle such material, but Heather Dune Macadam is deeply qualified, insightful, and perceptive.” —Susan Lacy, creator of the American Masters series and filmmaker

“The story of these teenage girls is truly extraordinary. Congratulations to Heather Dune Macadam for enabling the rest of us to sit down and just marvel at how on earth they did it.”
—Anne Sebba, New York Times bestselling author of Les Parisiennes and That Woman

“An important contribution to the literature on women's experiences.” —Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, founder and executive director, Remember the Women Institute

HEATHER DUNE MACADAM is the author of the international bestseller and Pen Award Finalist 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Transport to Auschwitz, translated into 18 languages, and the producer/director of its companion documentary film, 999. Her first book was the bestselling memoir Rena’s Promise: A Story of Sister in Auschwitz. A New York State Council of the Arts Fellow and recipient of a Society of Authors Research Grant, she is a board member of Cities of Peace: Auschwitz and the director and president of the Rena’s Promise Foundation. Her work in the battle against Holocaust denial have been recognized by Yad Vashem in the UK and Israel, the USC Shoah Foundation, the National Museum of Jewish History in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the Panstowe Museum of Auschwitz in Oswiecim, Poland. She and her partner, Simon Worrall, divide their time between East Hampton, New York, and Herefordshire, England. Please visit her online at www.heatherdune.com.

SIMON WORRALL is the author of two highly acclaimed books, The Poet and the Murderer (Dutton & Plume/Penguin Putnam USA, 2002; Fourth Estate UK), which William Styron called, “A gripping tale, done with great style and elegance…it held me in its spell from beginning to end,” and the novelized true story of his mother in World War II, The Very White of Love (HarperCollins, 2018). A Francophile since his Parisian childhood, Simon is fluent in French and speaks five other languages. He was the curator and interviewer for National Geographic’s “Book Talk” program for many years. He has been published in The Independent, The Guardian, The London Times, Marie Claire, GQ, and numerous other publications worldwide. His feature, “Emily Dickinson Goes To Las Vegas,” was the first piece of nonfiction ever published by George Plimpton in The Paris Review. Worrall is an experienced broadcaster, whose commentaries have aired on the BBC and NPR.

The Experts Praise 999

“Almost one thousand young Jewish women, some no older than sixteen, were rounded up across Slovakia in the spring of 1942 and told that they were being sent to do government work service in newly occupied Poland, and that they would be away no more than a few months. Very few returned. Macadam has managed to recreate not only the backgrounds of the women on the first convoy but also their day to day lives—and deaths—during their years in Auschwitz. Books such as this one are essential: they remind modern readers of events that should never be forgotten.”
—From the foreword by Caroline Moorehead, New York Times bestselling author of A Train in Winter

“A staggering narrative about the forgotten women of the Holocaust. In a profound work of scholarship, Heather Dune Macadam reveals how young women helped each other survive one of the most egregious events in human history. Her book also offers insight into the passage of these women into adulthood, and their children, as ‘secondhand survivors.’”
—Gail Sheehy, New York Times bestselling author of Passages and Daring: My Passages

“An important addition to the annals of the Holocaust, as well as women’s history. Not everyone could handle such material, but Heather Dune Macadam is deeply qualified, insightful and perceptive.”
—Susan Lacy, creator of the American Masters series and filmmaker

“However much one reads about the Holocaust there is always something more with the power to shock. The story of these teenage girls is truly extraordinary. Congratulations to Heather Dune Macadam for enabling the rest of us to sit down and just marvel at how on earth they did it.”
—Anne Sebba, New York Times bestselling author of Les Parisiennes and That Woman

“An important contribution to the literature on women's experiences . . .With passion and extensive research, Heather Dune Macadam gives the first official women’s transport to Auschwitz its rightful place in Holocaust history.”
—Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, founder and executive director, Remember the Women Institute

“A fresh, remarkable story of Auschwitz, on the 75th anniversary of its liberation. Dune Macadam (co-author: Rena's Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz, 1995) chronicles the tale of nearly 1,000 Jewish women from Slovakia, the first women to be shipped to the Polish death camp. While not the majority of inmates, a majority of the Slovakian Jews were sent there. The author makes great use of her "interviews with witnesses, survivors, and families, and USC Shoah Archive testimonies." Most readers have learned about the many shocking aspects of the camps, including slave labor and other countless deprivations, but the author shows us how every time a train pulled in, there would be a selection, for work or extermination; the same would occur at morning roll call. There was no rhyme nor reason to the selection process; it was often just a whim. Those women in this first shipment were tattooed beginning with the number 1,000, but within a year, they were numbering nearly 39,000. As Dune Macadam notes, there were some work assignments that were safer and slightly more comfortable: sewing, laundry, mail, clerical and, hospital. The most sought-after assignment was sorting the clothes of new arrivals. Often, the women would find a piece of bread or other contraband they could carefully smuggle out. One woman found a tube of diamonds. When she was caught, she claimed she was saving it for one of the Nazis in charge; she got off, and he took leave, bought a farm, and never returned. Throughout the book, readers will be consistently astounded by the strength of these women. They fought desperately to survive and supported each other, often literally holding up friends and hiding sick inmates. "My goal," writes Dune Macadam in an author's note, "is to build as complete a picture as I can of the girls and young women of the first ‘official' Jewish transport to Auschwitz." It's not easy reading, but consider that goal achieved. An uplifting story of the herculean strength of young girls in a staggeringly harrowing situation.”
—Kirkus

“In this intimate and harrowing account, historian and novelist Macadam (coauthor, Rena’s Promise) reconstructs the lives of dozens of young Jewish women who were on the first convoy to arrive at Auschwitz in March 1942… This careful, sympathetic history illuminates an incomprehensible human tragedy.”
—Publishers Weekly