The Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly

 

Characters/People
Caroline Ferriday – New York	Kasia Kuzmerick - Poland	Herta Oberheuser - Germany
French Consulate – New York Roger – boss   Mother   Paul Rodierre – actor Rena – wife Leena - daughter   Pia – secretary   Betty – friend, bought back silverware   Anise Postel-Vinay – founded ADIR, the National Association of Deportees and Internees of the Resistance   Serge – Russian cook, marries Zuzanna	Adalbert - father, director of postal center Halina – mother Zuzanna – sister, doctor   Worked in underground – “Gray Ranks”   Friends: Nadia Watroba Pietrik Bakoski – future husband   Halina – daughter   “Ravensbruck Rabbits”   Marthe – father’s girlfriend after Halina died	Mother Father   Heinz – mother’s brother, raping Herta in butcher shop   Ravensbruck – reeducation camp for women   Commandant Koegel   Dorothea Binz – head of punishment bunker   Irma Greese – guard in training   Fritz – doctor, former classmate

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from paperback edition.

1.       Discuss Herta and her decision to go to Ravensbruck.  Once she was there and found out what was really happening, was it possible for her to leave?

2.       Was she initially a bad person? Could she  have ever redeemed herself?

3.       When Paul and Rena were reunited and you read that they had a child, did you understand Rena’s need to talk with Caroline?

4.       As you were reading, did you think Caroline was going to help them find the baby or stick to her word to do nothing?

5.       Caroline’s mother told her she had to help Rena and Paul find their child because “it’s the Christian thing to do” (page 325).  When Caroline replied that she was feeling very Christian, her mother responded, “Well, splash some cold water on your face.  That will help” (page 325).  Was this good advice?

6.       What did you think about Caroline’s and Kasia’s mothers?  Kasia’s mother worked for the Germans in an attempt to save her husband.  At Ravensbruck, she drew portraits of the Germans in exchange for food she shared with the other prisoners.  Caroline’s mother had “achieved field marshal status in the post-World War II French charitable world” (page 367).  How did they each influence their daughters?

7.       It seemed as if Halina and Herta had a good working relationship at the clinic.  How do you think Halina justified this given that she must have known what was going on?

8.       In the summer of 1945, Kasia still felt guilty about causing her mother’s capture at the movie theater bringing her a sandwich and subsequent death in the concentration camp.  Did you understand her feelings?   Would it have been possible for her to move on from these feelings?  

9.       Do you think Kasia found peace at the end of the novel?

10.   When Kasia talked with Herta in 1959, Herta justified what she did by telling Kasia, “I did my job.  I spent years in prison just for doing academic research…Research to save German soldiers.  And for your information, the German government for years has exercised the right to use executed criminals for such research purposes” (page 469).  Do you think she really believed what she said?

11.   Herta’s classmate, Fritz, was also at Ravensbruck, but asked to be moved to the front lines because he was bothered by what was happening there.  Why was he bothered by Herta was not?

12.   In 1959, Herta had been released from jail and was practicing under her own name.   Why didn’t anyone realize who she was or revoke her license before Kasia?

13.   Discuss your reading experience.  How did you approach the book?