Brenda's Reviews > The Doctor's Daughter

Sofia and her mother, Lena, were Jewish, but her father wasn’t. His life as a doctor had been to care for his patients and now the Germans were taking the Jews away to unimaginable horrors, Sofia and Lena were safe for a time. Papa was doing work for the Nazis and although he’d told his wife and daughter it was for them that he was doing it, they couldn’t see that – only that he was betraying his people.

Isaac, his sister Olivia and their parents were in the ghetto in Warsaw when the Germans began taking the Jews away to relocate. Isaac and his family had a good hiding spot, which they barely moved from. But Isaac’s papa would go out at night, not returning until the early hours, helping and working with the resistance. When he didn’t return one night, their mother tried to save the children, but she was taken as well, leaving Isaac and Olivia to live below ground in the sewers with a few others. After months, they were finally captured by the Germans and taken to Auschwitz.

As Sofia watched the prisoners working on their property below her window, men and boys who came from Auschwitz early in the morning, leaving late afternoon, she desperately wanted to do something to help. She and her mother came up with a plan to help the prisoners – keeping it from trigger happy guards was a challenge. A little food here, a little there – it wasn’t enough. The plan they made was a daring one, but would it succeed? Or would they receive one of the bullets the Germans were always happy to fire?

The Doctor’s Daughter by Shari J. Ryan is my first by this author, and it won’t be my last. An excellent narrative, in both Isaac’s and Sofia’s voices, the horrors of what they and many others went through, was described well. Isaac was a strong, resilient young man, having to grow up much too soon. Olivia, only fourteen when she entered the camp, went through much. Sofia and her mother suffered immensely. We all know, in what we’ve read, how many atrocities surrounded the Jews in the second world war. The author has written a well-researched novel of the times. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.