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Summary
Summary
Cyrla's neighbors have begun to whisper. Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke's soldier has disappeared , and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their father's custody-- or taken away.
A note is left under the mat. Someone knows that Cyrla, sent from Poland years before for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. The Nazis are imposing more and more restrictions; she won't be safe there for long.
And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. Cyrla must choose between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking Anneke's place in the Lebensborn--Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy's lair, can Cyrla fool the doctors, nurses, guards, and other mothers-to-be? Can she escape before they discover she is not who she claims?
Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, MY ENEMY'S CRADLE keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.
Author Notes
Before becoming an author, Sara Young was a watercolor painter. She has written several children's books including the Clementine series, Stuart's Cape, Stuart Goes to School, and Dumbstruck under the name of Sara Pennypacker. Written under her real name, My Enemy's Cradle is her first adult novel. She currently lives in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Children's-book author Young (who, as Sara Pennypacker, penned the celebrated Stuart series) makes a stunning adult debut with this beautifully told and heart-wrenching novel set in WWII Europe. Cyrla, half-Jewish, is no longer safe hiding in the home of her Dutch relatives under the increasingly harsh Nazi occupation. When cousin Annika, whom Cyrla closely resembles, becomes pregnant by a German soldier, Annika's father enrolls her in a Lebensborn, a birthing center for Aryan children, where the slogan is "Have one baby for the Fuhrer." In a tragic turn of events, Cyrla discovers her only chance of survival is to hide in plain sight: she must assume Annika's identity and live in the German Lebensborn until rescued. Within the Lebensborn's walls, mothers-to-be receive proper nutrition and medical care until their children are taken from them for adoption into Aryan families The horrors Cyrla witnesses are softened only by her resounding optimism and strength. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Secrets of betrayal, love, and honor drive the plot in this riveting historical novel about a young woman caught up in the Nazi Lebensborn program, which forced suitably Aryan girls to breed German babies for the Master Race. When blond, pregnant Cyrla, 19, takes on the identity of her dead Gentile cousin and moves into the breeding home in Munich, no one knows she is half-Jewish. Why doesn't Cyrla's Jewish lover, Isaac, come to rescue her? Or is her baby the offspring of rape by a Nazi soldier? And why is her dead cousin's lover, a decent German soldier, trying to get close to Cyrla? Unfortunately, the resolution ties everything up too easily. But until then, Cyrla's intimate, first-person narrative reveals the horrific history through unforgettable individual experience of guilt and sacrifice. The death camps are always there in the background, in contrast with the comfort of the breeding homes. Readers will be haunted by the intricacies of friends and enemies in a story that has been seldom told.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2007 Booklist
Kirkus Review
In children's author Young's first novel for adults, a Polish Jew in World War II Holland finds temporary safety in the Lebensborn, a maternity home the Nazis set up to breed Aryan babies. Cyrla's deceased mother was a Dutch Christian, and in the late 1930s Cyrla's Jewish father sends her from Poland to live in Holland with her Christian aunt's family. When the novel opens in 1941, Cyrla's cousin and best friend, Annika, has fallen in love with a handsome young German officer, Karl, and become pregnant. To avoid disgrace she agrees to enter a nearby Lebensborn, but she commits suicide before she can go because Karl has refused to take responsibility for the pregnancy. By now Germans have begun rounding up Jews. Although distraught, Annika's mother plots to save Cyrla by having her take Annika's place at the Lebensborn. Cyrla goes to Isaac, the Jewish activist she's been in love with for years. He claims he's incapable of love but agrees to impregnate her, then arrange for her safe exodus. Eleven days later, a pregnant Cyrla--her easy fecundity is the novel's first but not last credibility stretch--leaves for the Lebensborn though not before she is savagely (and gratuitously) raped by an SS soldier. In the Lebensborn, Cyrla carries on her charade as Annika while waiting to hear from Isaac. Then Karl shows up. It seems Annika never told him she was pregnant; he broke up with her first because he was already in love with Cyrla. Karl, who hates the Nazis, takes great risks to help Cyrla. Despite her initial distrust, she eventually acknowledges she loves him. Their far-fetched romance is at odds with the well-researched description of the Nazi maternity program, and although Young tries to avoid stereotyping, many of the supporting characters are two-dimensional at best. Earnest but ultimately sentimental rather than profound. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
One of the lesser-known aspects of the Nazi regime was the Lebensborn program, which promoted the expansion of the "master race" by encouraging German women and those who were racially "pure" in its occupied countries to bear as many children as possible. Young explores the experiences of these women in her fictional story of Cyrla, a young Polish/Dutch woman who enters a Lebensborn maternity home in place of her cousin Annika, who died tragically. Unbeknown to the officials, Cyrla is half Jewish and must walk a tightrope as she plots her escape. Despite a few too many far-fetched plot contrivances, the subject matter is of immediate interest and sympathy. At the book's outset, Cyrla is strident, idealistic, and foolishly outspoken, but as she matures she begins to understand the complexity of the world around her and the people she has known. An unexpected development midway through the novel helps make this a real page-turner. Recommended for most public libraries.-Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
ONESEPTEMBER 1941Not here, too! Nee! From the doorway, I saw soup splash from my aunts ladle onto the tablecloth. These days, there was no fat in the broth to set a stain; still, my heart dropped when she made no move to blot the spill. Since the Germans had come, she had retreated further into herself, fading away in front of me so that sometimes it was like losing my mother all over again.Of course here, Mies, my uncle scoffed. His pale face pinked with the easy flush of red-haired men, and he leaned back and took off his glasses to polish them on his napkin. Did you think the Germans would annex us as a refuge for Jews? The question is only why it took so long. I brought the bread to the table and took my seat. Whats happened?They posted a set of restrictions for Jews today, my uncle said. They'll scarcely be able to leave their homes. He inspected his glasses, put them back on. And then he turned to look at me directly.I froze, my fingertips whitening around my spoon, suddenly reminded of something Id witnessed in childhood.Walking home from school, a group of us had come upon a man beating his dog. All of us shouted at him to stop our numbers made us brave and some of the bigger boys even tried to pull him off the poor animal. A boy beside me caught my attention; this boy, I knew, was himself often beaten by the older boys. He was crying, Stop! Stop it! along with the rest of us. But something in his expression chilled me: satisfaction. When my uncle turned to look at me, I saw that boys face again.Things will be different now, Cyrla.I dropped my gaze to my plate, but I felt my heart begin to pound. Was he weighing the risk of having me in his home?His home. I stared down at the white tablecloth. Beneath it, a table rug was edged with gold silk fringe. When I had first arrived it had seemed strange to cover a table this way, but now I knew every color and pattern of its design. I lifted my eyes to take in the room I had come to love: the tall windows painted crisp white overlooking our small courtyard; the three watercolors of the Rijks museum hanging in a column on their braided cord; the glimpse into the parlor beyond the burgundy velvet drapes, where the piano stood in the corner, necklaced with framed photographs of our family. My heart began to beat even faster where did I belong if not here?I glanced at my cousin Anneke was my safe passage through the treacherous landscape of my uncles world. But she had been distracted all day, drifting away whenever Id tried to talk to her, as if she was harboring a secret. She hadn't even heard her fathers threat. What? I kept my voice calm. What will be different here?He was cutting the bread. He didn't stop, but I saw the warning look he gave my aunt. Everything. He cut three slices from the loaf and then laid the knife down carefully. Everything will be different.I drew the loaf toward me, picked up the knife as deliberately as a chess piece, and cut a fourth Excerpted from My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
