I read a digital edition of The Trumpets of Jericho that I received for free from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for an honest review.
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Bookbaby, under the imprimatur Monochrome Books
Originally published: July 22nd, 2015
Pages: 552 (paperback)
Synopsis by the publisher:
Imagine the horror that was Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest and most lethal of the six Nazi annihilation camps.
Imagine it 1944 and a prisoner uprising at this terrible place, the rebels blowing up one crematorium, damaging another, and killing many of their SS masters.
Imagine it Jews leading this revolt, a people those same SS thought incapable of fighting.
Now imagine one of those leaders a 22-year-old girl, arguably the fieriest Jewish heroine to come out of the Holocaust.
Finally, following the revolt, imagine her and three other young female inmates tortured for weeks by the Gestapo without giving up a single fellow conspirator.
Imagine all that and more and you have The Trumpets of Jericho, the only novel to tell this extraordinary, true-life story in its entirety.
My thoughts:
When I was a little girl, my father told me about my family heritage. That we came from Jewish descent and because of the Holocaust that is why a lot of our family now lives in Sweden. He got me to read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, and ever since then I’ve been fascinated by the stories of World War II.
So, when I saw The Trumpets of Jericho up for review, a story of an Auschwitz revolt that I had never heard of before, I knew I had to read it.
Little did I know what I getting myself into.
The Trumpets of Jericho is a chunker of a book, but to tell the story that needs to be told, it has to be.
It’s a story of people with hope for freedom, an underground community seeking justice, true heroes, pure evil, excruciating pain, death, and love.
We get to see Auschwitz from the view of those who are seeking justice, those who run the camp, and those who are merely trying to survive.
The Trumpets of Jericho is a hard book to read, but for all the right reasons, and it’s even harder to put down. It’s hard to read because we know that it’s based on true events. Knowing that the cruelty and evil that is told in this story really did happen makes it into an absolutely heartbreaking story.
It is not for the faint of heart as it tells a very graphic tale of war, torture, and death.
There are some truly remarkable characters in this story. People who did everything in their power to get justice for their people and their loved ones, and I’m so grateful for Mr. Dolan to give these heroes a spotlight and a voice that they truly deserve.
The Trumpets of Jericho is an important book, and the work and research that Mr. Dolan has put into it is remarkable!
Highly recommend, but it comes with a warning; it will break your heart, over and over again. But it will also show you the strength of love, and the power of hope.
It is a must-read for the readers who enjoyed Mila 18, The Tattooist of Auschwitz and The Diary of a Young Girl.
It is a story that will stay with me for a very, very long time.
Click on the Reedsy Discovery logo below to get to know more, maybe get your own copy, and let me know what you think of it💛
Christina de Vries 