A Story of Survival
This portrait of a particular aspect of the camps during WW2 is much more graphic in descriptions of the conditions the living endured, many individuals' recollections, and the internal camp politics.
The material is gathered from meticulous investigation of printed sources and also many interviews accomplished over time. Also noted is the fact that while they survived by extraordinary means, they remained prisoners to survivors' guilt and more. A very starkly dramatic nonfiction account that intends that we will NEVER FORGET NOR REPEAT.
I requested and received a temporary unedited electronic galley from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley. Pub Date Sep 16, 2025 #goodreads #bookbub #librarything #storygraph #NetGalley
#TheWomensOrchestraofAuschwitz by AnneSebba @annesebba @stmartinspress #survival
#historicalplacesevents, #gassed #germanhistory #culturalhistory #exterminationcamp #interviews #historicalresearch #holocaust #historicalfigures @AuschwitzMuseum

"Our remembering is an act of generosity aimed at saving men and women from apathy to evil, if not from evil itself.” Elie Wiesel

This book deeply moved me. Anne Sebba tells the incredible true story of nearly fifty women who formed an orchestra inside Auschwitz, using music as their only chance to survive. While the story is heartbreaking, it’s also a powerful reminder of the strength and resilience people can find even in unimaginable circumstances.

What I appreciated most was how Sebba shows not just the history, but the emotional weight these women carried — the guilt, the moral conflicts, and the bonds they formed. It’s not always easy to read, but it’s an important and unforgettable book that sheds light on a part of Holocaust history I hadn’t known much about.

I really enjoyed this story. Easy five stars. I have told friends, family and members of my Facebook group about this book!

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to read stories of the Holocaust. The detail and history that was researched for this was amazing. It did however at times take away from the women's stories. This was a hard read and it should be given it is true stories and during a horrific time in our history. I found myself not being able to put it down at times and sometimes having to take a break from the heaviness of it. Would definitely recommend this book even if you're not usually a historical nonfiction reader. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

“The Auschwitz orchestra exposed the grotesque contradiction at the heart of the Final Solution-the Nazis inability to decide whether Jews were to be annihilated because they were the lowest of the low or because they ran the world in some form of evil conspiracy.”

I have read so many Holocaust books, the first two chapters of this book were extremely difficult to get through.
The story focuses on a group of women forced to perform for their oppressors to stay alive.
What does it mean to survive?
Devastating, heart wrenching, completely unforgettable, a moving tribute to these women who played to survive.
I was left haunted, a story that I will never forget.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this book.

Book Review: The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival by Anne Sebba
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for my gifted ARC.

I picked up this book expecting a historical account, and while it delivered that, it also offered something more personal and thought-provoking than I anticipated. Anne Sebba’s The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz is a well-researched and deeply moving narrative about nearly fifty women who survived the horrors of Auschwitz by playing music—an experience that was both a lifeline and a burden. Sebba explores this lesser-known piece of Holocaust history with care, precision, and an eye for the difficult moral questions that come with it.

These women were selected to form an orchestra in 1943, ordered to play as prisoners marched to and from labor, or during weekly concerts for SS officers. Music became their means of survival, but it also placed them in a complex and uncomfortable role—used by their captors to maintain order, boost morale among guards, and even send a false image of civility to outsiders. For many, it meant surviving while others perished. That contrast—their lives spared, their music heard, while loved ones vanished—is at the heart of the emotional weight this book carries.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a teenage cellist and one of the orchestra’s few surviving members, appears throughout the narrative and offers crucial perspective. And then there’s Alma Rosé, the group’s conductor and a figure as fascinating as she is controversial. A talented violinist and the niece of Gustav Mahler, Alma was known for her discipline and high standards—characteristics that may have kept the orchestra alive. Sebba paints her not as a hero, but as a complex, commanding presence whose leadership was both admired and resented. Her story raises one of the book’s central questions: What does it mean to lead in a space where leadership itself is warped by terror?

Sebba doesn’t shy away from the contradictions and moral discomfort of the orchestra’s existence. These women weren’t collaborators. They were victims making impossible choices in order to survive. Still, the guilt, shame, and silence many of them carried after the war is explored with depth and empathy. The author’s use of archival research, interviews, and survivor testimony helps bring each of these women out of the shadows of history. Some survived, rebuilt lives, and eventually spoke out. Others never fully escaped what happened to them.

One quote that stood out to me was: “The courage of the orchestra girls, like everyone else who survived Belsen, demands to be recognized.” That’s what this book does best—it offers recognition. Not romanticism, not judgment, but acknowledgment of resilience under horrific conditions. These women endured something that no one should have to, and the fact that they did it while performing music only sharpens the paradox at the center of this story.

The book can be dense at times. There are many names, countries, and timelines to follow, and the pacing occasionally stumbles under the weight of the historical detail. Still, I never felt that any part of it was unnecessary. If anything, it reminded me that history isn’t tidy. It’s messy, scattered, overlapping—and Sebba treats it that way. The final chapters, which follow the survivors post-liberation, are some of the most impactful. Liberation didn’t erase trauma, and this book doesn’t pretend it did. For many of the women, the real struggle began after the gates of Auschwitz opened.

This isn’t a quick or easy read, but it’s a meaningful one. It offers a vital addition to Holocaust literature and highlights women’s voices that often go unheard. Sebba’s writing is thoughtful, clear, and respectful of the story’s emotional gravity without being overly dramatic. If you’re interested in history, women’s stories, or the role of art in survival, this is absolutely worth reading.

The hard and gritty true story of the women whose survival in the concentration camps depended on music. A definite must read for those who want to hear the stories of the Holocaust.

The stories are unconscionable and heartbreaking but intriguing. I enjoyed the history and information - of which the author clearly did not skimp on research- but did not enjoy the way she chose to tell these women's stories.

The information was provided in a semi-chronological order. It struggled with this format because there were many names but a full story of that person wasn't always provided. Sometimes, tidbits of information were provided but each paragraph wasn't about the same person.

The conclusion was similarly disappointing. I loved having some information about survivors and their life after leaving the camp but it wasn't as organized. This book should have been outstanding because the topic is incredibly interesting.

This book is a look into some of the survivors but at a different angle. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the Holocaust or just history.

This would have been a great and powerful book if it wasn’t bogged down with too much detail and flowed better. It was confusing with all the names and dates and time frames. Very well researched and extremely sad to read though. As an avid reader of historical fiction I don’t know if I would recommend this book

As a teen, I watched a TV movie called Playing For Time then read Fania Fenelon's book. Though I know that was rife with criticism, I still found the story fascinating and touching. So, when I saw this title, I was excited to get it!
Alas, it reads more like a dry academic collegiate paper. It is somewhat disjointed, overwritten and over-researched, and lacks as much personal narrative connections I'd expected.
Still a notable book. But not as good as it could have been.
I received an ARC from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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

I felt like this book was written skillfully with good research and good intent. It focuses on a group of women forced to perform for their oppressors just to stay alive. Their story is such a tiny piece of the countless lives affected within concentration camps during that dark time. What we know is just a small glimpse of the reality inside those walls, and even that glimpse reveals unimaginable horrors. Many stories remain untold, hidden beneath the surface. Slowly but surely, more of these painful truths are shedding light, helping us better understand the full scope of what happened. The narrative jumps between past and present quite often. While this didn't distract me, it does need careful attention to keep track of the events. The book does have vivid, sometimes difficult descriptions, about what survivors and victims went throughout the Holocaust. Even after the war ended, many survivors faced struggles as they tried to piece their lives back together. I could say much more, but in brief, this was such a good read. I believe it’s an important story that deserves to be part of school curriculums today.

Historical non-fiction isn't my usual genre, but the title and description of this book were intriguing. I'm a fan of World War II historical fiction and thought the book might follow along the lines of others I've read.

However, it was an extremely difficult read through the first two chapters, with highly graphic descriptions of the suffering encountered in Auschwitz. I stopped reading and picked up another book, but The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz kept haunting me. The thought that I owed these courageous women the respect to muster the strength to read their story eventually won out.

As the book details the time of operation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps, it is fast moving and highly emotional. There are MANY characters, and a directory provided at the end of the book is a bit of a help; yet it is still a challenge to keep everyone straight. A credit to Anne Sebba, she typically gives a brief reminder of who's who as characters come and go in the story.

Liberation day, and the time that follows is an exhilarating, yet still very challenging section of the book. The end of the war did not bring immediate relief for prisoners, and it was sad to learn that so many had difficulty finding resettlement or assimilation opportunities. The world should have embraced these still suffering survivors, but it seemed as if the story was just too much for anyone on the outside to grasp.

The final two chapters of the book address the most recent years of those who survived. There is a great deal of detail, probably a bit too much, in this section and the story seems to drag at the close, thus the four star versus five star rating. However, this could simply be due to an intense emotional let down after immersion in the horrors experienced by the Auschwitz prisoners.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #MinotaurBooks #StMartin'sPress for the advance reader copy. Opinions expressed here represent my unbiased review of #TheWomen'sOrchestraofAuschwitz

As a history major, this book needs to be read in highschool and college history classes! It was fabulous! I could not stop reading this beautiful story.

A deeply researched story about the lives in Auschwitz as prisoners. So heartbreaking. A book we all need to read. I loved it!

I would rate this a 7/10, but with this rating system I will round up and give it 4 ⭐️s. Overall, it’s an informative book that sheds light on a perspective rarely heard of when learning about the Holocaust. It was interesting to learn about the women, the process, the full picture. Unfortunately, it was VERY difficult to keep track of the time frame and persons being discussed. You could go from the beginning of the founding of Auschwitz’s to the childhood of one of the orchestra member’s to a summary of how an instrument was gotten and then jump into a retelling of their day. It was not smooth reading by no stretch of the imagination. I was a bit lost on what the purpose of the book was since it wasn’t straightforward, and at one point she says: “… revealing here is the answer to my nagging question throughout the research on this book: what special qualities enabled a teenager without either of her parents to survive prison and camp life of the most brutal kind and emerge to lead a full life… born with a will to survive or was that will forged in Auschwitz?” I didn’t get that question relayed during my reading until this point. However, all complaints aside, I was glad to have read it. As she says in the book, “The courage of the orchestra girls, like everyone else who survived Belsen, demands to be recognized.”

My favorite quote: “The Auschwitz orchestras exposed the grotesque contradiction at the heart of the Final Solution—the Nazis’ inability to decide whether Jews were to be annihilated because they were the lowest of the low or because they ran the world in some form of evil conspiracy.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5 stars)

This is one of those books that sits with you long after you finish the last page. The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz is a powerful and meticulously researched account of a group of women who survived one of the darkest chapters in human history by playing music — not as artists, but as tools of propaganda, comfort, and control in a death camp.

Anne Sebba handles this subject with the sensitivity and nuance it demands. She never shies away from the moral complexity of what these women endured — playing for the very people responsible for destroying their families and communities, all while navigating the fragile line between survival and complicity. Alma Rosé’s leadership, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch’s testimony, and the sheer strength of these women left me both heartbroken and in awe.

This is not an easy read, but it’s an important one. The narrative is clear, the sourcing is rich, and Sebba’s ability to center the humanity of these women — even in inhumane circumstances — is what truly sets this book apart. I learned so much I hadn’t known, even after reading other Holocaust memoirs and histories.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC. I’m always grateful for the opportunity to read such meaningful, carefully crafted work — and this one in particular will stay with me for a long time.

Devastating, unforgettable, and necessary. A deeply moving tribute to the women who played music to survive.

Anne Sebba brings astonishing care and clarity to this heart-wrenching true story of survival, sacrifice, and impossible moral choices. The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz doesn’t just recount facts—it breathes life into the names, faces, and haunting melodies of nearly fifty women whose instruments became lifelines.

This book is not easy to read, but it’s essential. It asks hard questions: What does it mean to survive? What does it mean to be forced to create beauty in the midst of brutality? And how do you carry the weight of that survival?

For readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz or The Librarian of Auschwitz, this is a must-read—offering new perspectives, especially from the voices of women and musicians who endured the unthinkable.