What a beautiful and harrowing story about two women who did their best despite everything they were forced to endure. As some who is queer and has lost family in the Holocaust, I feel a deep connection to their story. It is beautiful but also extremely emotionally difficult to read.

A spellbinding look at a horrific situation. Milena and Grete meet when they are sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. The author 's meticulous research reveals the likelihood that the two women were a couple in love. Strauss's description of the brutal conditions of the camp are riveting and appalling. In the large canon of books about the Holocaust, this one is a standout.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press Early Readers + St. Martin Press + Netgalley for the gifted copy.

This is a book worth reading if you love history, historical fiction, and non-fic. I have learned about WWII through school growing up, movies, documentaries, and books, but it's always nice to learn some more. You can always, never stop learning about the past. There were parts of WWII that I learned that I did not know. I did not know about Milena and Margarete until I read this story. You get a first-hand glance of what the writer experienced during this history when their love had to be hidden away. You get a glimpse of what the consequences could've been if their relationship were to be exposed. This book is intense because it draws out a lot from you mentally and emotionally.

This is such a beautiful, well-researched sapphic biography on two women named Milena and Margarete. They both met in 1940 at a concentration camp in Ravensbrück. Their friendship was beautiful, and they helped each other, and with this, they were able to help the lives of so many people. This book covers details and facts about the Holocaust during WWII. The women, and so many others that lived during that time, had experienced so many hardships and even death. Hardships really would be putting it lightly. The cruelty that these women and these people had to live through during this time is unfathomable and unforgivable.

This is a book worth reading if you love history, historical fiction, and non-fic. I have learned about WWII through school growing up, movies, documentaries, and books, but it's always nice to learn some more. You can always, never stop learning about the past. There were parts of WWII that I learned that I did not know. I did not know about Milena and Margarete until I read this story. You get a first-hand glance of what the writer experienced during this history when their love had to be hidden away. You get a glimpse of what the consequences could've been if their relationship were to be exposed. This book is intense because it draws out a lot from you mentally and emotionally.


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Milena and Margarete is a poignant, deeply moving book about an incredibly dark time in history. The story describes the meeting and experiences of Milena Jesenská and Margarete Buber-Neumann during their imprisonment in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. After meeting in the camp, the women become friends and then soon fall in love. At risk to themselves, they strive to shield each other from the cruelties surrounding them. Through horrific living conditions, violence, and sickness, Milena and Margarete love and support each other.

Both primary and secondary sources are used with great effect to provide context for many of the events of WWII. Strauss is excellent at explaining how these events would have been viewed by women in the camp as well as the wider world. This book showcases major events in WWII while also providing great detail on the inner workings and every day life of the women incarcerated in Ravensbrück. Strauss also provides details on how the experience of incarceration in Ravensbrück changed over time, and connected those changes to wider events happening in Germany and across the world. I was moved to tears by some of the descriptions of the living conditions in the camp, as well as by the way the Nazis and collaborators treated the incarcerated women. The endurance of love and compassion among the prisoners in those conditions was immensely poignant. While reading this book, I felt the full spectrum of emotion from hope, heartbreak, disgust, shock, and empathy.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about history, especially WWII. I have watched many documentaries and read many books on WWII history and I felt that this book provided me with fresh insight. I would also recommend to those who enjoy reading about queer and LGBTQ+ history.

Thank you to Net Galley and to St. Martin’s Press for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Milena Jesenska and Margarete Buber-Neumann met in 1940 in Ravensbrück concentration camp. The women became inseparable as they navigated the cruel atmosphere that tried to separate them from all they held dear. The "passionate friends" helped each other survive. This book shares the stories of their backgrounds, families and relationship.
I appreciated the book's flow and writing style. It's organized in a logical way and easy to read.
The book is packed with historical facts, too. I learned a lot about culture at the time and discovered new details about the Holocaust.
Perhaps the women were lesbians. They chose to label themselves as "passionate friends." Regardless, the author affirms "Scholars have recognized that for too long history was written about kings, conquerors, and colonizers. The narrative left out the story of the majority——everyday people, the enslaved, the colonized, and of course, the marginalized . To rectify this imbalance, in telling this story, I engage in an act of recovery and imagination."

This is a WWII story of two women in a concentration camp, hiding their love for each other. It was taboo at the time. It is a good story telling how they handled their feelings.

I was absolutely riveted by this book. I've read a lot of WWII history books, but I've realized I haven't read many that detail the horrors people experienced while trying to survive in concentration camps. What's more, the story of the love that developed between these two women was incredible.