From horror, hope: 2 rare survivors of a Nazi camp

The emotional toll of reviewing a Holocaust book — on Mildred Harnack, the sole American leader of a Nazi-resistance group, and guillotined — made me hesitate to review another. Fortunately I did. While “Always Remember Your Name” is equally affecting, this memoir by sisters Andra and Tatiani Bucci has a hopeful ending.

“We were and are a rarity: two children who survived Birkenau,” they write. Of 232,000 children sent there, about 50 lived.

Now in their 80s, the sisters share their experiences in schools, even returning to Auschwitz with students, because “looking into the eyes of the young people who are listening to us, we find that hope returns, immediately.”

Andra and Tatiana are not professional writers; this is not a literary masterpiece. Its strength is in their recollections, told in their words.

The two were born in Fiume — part of Italy then and Croatia now. Their father was Catholic, their mother Jewish. Tatiana was 6 and Andra 4 when they, their mother, aunt and cousin Sergio were arrested and sent to Birkenau, the largest part of the Auschwitz complex, on April 4, 1944.

We see the death camp through their young eyes. They remember being tattooed, and while living in the Kinderblock barrack with other children, playing outside while adults labored. Imagine, playing at Auschwitz near “pyramids of corpses” they learned to ignore.

As horrific as that image is, the most tragic memory for these two, who looked like twins and “stuck together like a stamp to a postcard,” was losing Sergio.

One day, children were lined up and asked whether they wanted to “go and see Mamma.” A guard had warned Tati and Andra to say no. Sergio was so eager to see his mother, he said yes, and was one of 20 children sent to Hamburg, where they were tortured by a Nazi medical officer and hanged.

After the camp was liberated in 1945, the two ended up at an orphanage outside London, where they “recovered our childhood.” And in an incredible twist of fate, the two were summoned to the director’s office and told their parents were alive and had tracked them down.

“Always Remember Your

Name” was first published three years ago in Italian; Ann Goldstein has translated it into English to reach a wider audience. I hope it does.