From Dust and Ashes: A Story of Liberation by Tricia Goyer

From Dust and Ashes: A Story of Liberation is published by Moody Press.  It depicts the true physical and emotional hardships endured at Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps.  According to the flyleaf's endorsement by LeRoy Woychick, U. S. Army veteran, 11th Armored Division, "The book mirrors my memoirs."

Another endorsement on the flyleaf comes from Thomas C. Nicolla, U. S. Army veteran 11th Armored Division and one of the first GIs on the scene at Mauthausen and Gusen and who witnessed the camps still in action.  He says the book, "relates the feelings and anxieties of the victims of the German concentration camps, as well as the German non-Nazi civilian experiences after the war." 

If you are looking for a "fluffy, easy" book to read - this isn't it.  However; this is a MUST read.  Goyer does such an incredible job of describing the smell, the horror, the ash that flutters down like snow, and the utter helplessness of both the prisoners and the German non-Nazi's that I find myself having to put the book down for a time to process all that I've just read. 

Helene, the pregnant wife of an SS officer and the mother of little Anika.  Helene is furious with Friedrich abandons his family in an attempt to escape the American Troops.  She believes him to be a murderer who allowed evil to become part of himself instead of standing up to it.   Helene decides to go home to her father's house and hopes that he will take them in.

Sergeant Peter Scott leads a platoon of U.S. soldiers whose mission it is to secure a bridge near St. Georgen, Austria.  He had heard of these death camps, but never expected to come upon one.  The mission changes to be one of liberation instead. 

Michaela and Lelia, prisoners at Gusen, are startled one morning by sirens and a loud commotion which signaled liberation for their camp.  Michaela's father, a pastor, hid Lelia's family in the basement but they were discovered.  Michaela and Lelia are the only survivors of the two families - and both are near death from starvation and harsh treatment.

Most of the information I've read or heard about the death camps ends at the point of liberation.  Goyer's book is the first account I've experienced that talked about how the German townspeople  were forced to help bury the dead in mass graves as punishment for "doing nothing" to stop the horrors.  Or how the townspeople pitched in from their own meager supplies to help feed and nurse the prisoners back to health. 

This book needs to be read and shared so that we never forget what happened, and so that it never happens again.  There are factions today who wish the truth of the Turk's genocide of the Armenian People and Hitler's genocide of the Jewish People to be eradicated from our history and textbooks.  They argue that such atrocities never happened.  In 2010, so many of the survivors of these camps and their liberators have died and there are fewer and fewer who can share first-hand accounts of what truly did happen.  We must keep their stories alive.