“If grief could stop a heart, [Rachael] was sure hers would have stopped a hundred times over

since the Germans started ruling the world. She was filled to the brim with grief. It had replaced

the marrow of her bones. It pumped through her veins in place of blood. It was in her lungs,

making it unable to breathe a full breath. It filled her mouth, overflowed from her eyes, seeped

out of her pores.”

Boy… Do I feel sorry for Rachael – one of the main characters of my book, Diamonds in

Auschwitz. Of all the characters I wrote, she definitely has it the worst. It makes me very sad for

her, especially since I named her after my sister. But I needed a tragic character – someone who

was more dead than alive when the readers first meet her. After everything Rachael had

survived before the book opens, it’s a wonder that she’s alive at all.

She was just biding her time until death finally claimed her. Instead, though, she found a

priceless engagement ring in the mud outside the gates of Auschwitz. The ring is the catalyst

that opens her eyes, jolts her awake, make her finally take in and acknowledge her

surroundings.

As you read through Rachael’s story and the unspeakable things she endured (no spoilers in this

blog… you’ll have to wait for the book), I’m sure it’s tempting to say I was a little melodramatic

in her case. Maybe I laid it on a little too thick.

I asked myself that question more than once (especially because I feel for my dear sister when

she reads about her namesake).

So I did my research. The joy/burden of a historical fiction writer is researching. Reading.

Looking up facts. Digging Deep. Then doing it all again.

Every tragedy that Rachael encountered, every death she witnessed, was completely based in

fact. I fear that the Jews in Prague during World War II are often forgotten. Though their city

was left mainly intact (particularly when compared to a city like Warsaw), though they did not

experience a sudden and traumatic event like Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), the Jews

in Prague were relentlessly persecuted. Every terrible experience that Rachael lives through

happened to Jews in Prague, down to the final fate of her youngest child.

In truth, it sickens me to think of what I had to write, but I had to write the truth. As awful as it

was to put into words, and as awful as it will be to read, it needs to be remembered. So, I’m

sorry Sister Rachel about what happens to woman who carries your name, but it’s a memorial

to the women who truly lived through it.