The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany - Gwen Strauss

Written by Gwen Strauss
Read by Juliet Stevenson
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release date: May 4, 2021
Duration: 13:44:18

The Nine follows the true story of the author’s great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a ten-day journey across the front lines of World War II from Germany back to Paris.

This program includes a bonus conversation with the author, as well as an archival recording of Martine Podliasky singing the Champs de Marais at her mother, Hélène Podliasky’s, funeral.

The nine women were all under thirty when they joined the resistance. They smuggled arms through Europe, harbored parachuting agents, coordinated communications between regional sectors, trekked escape routes to Spain and hid Jewish children in scattered apartments. They were arrested by French police, interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo. They were subjected to a series of French prisons and deported to Germany.
The group formed along the way, meeting at different points, in prison, in transit, and at Ravensbrück. By the time they were enslaved at the labor camp in Leipzig, they were a close-knit group of friends. During the final days of the war, forced onto a death march, the nine chose their moment and made a daring escape.

Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.

“Narrator Juliet Stevenson pours her considerable talent into her performance to make the Dutch, French, and German accents of these women sound authentic to her listeners. As the Allies closed in, the Nazis forced Ravensbruck’s prisoners on a death march to kill them before they could be liberated. The nine decided they had to escape–or die trying. Stevenson’s performance captures their despair, fear, and successes as they made a run for it. Their story has never been told before. Stevenson presents a gripping portrait of courage under fire.”—Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award