In Nazi Germany, Ingrid was considered a bastard, a shame, a national disgrace. Her sin: being born black. Hadamar is the story of Ingrid Marchand, a mixed race girl, growing up as the Nazis rise to power and Hitler's barbaric racial policies come into force. With her skin the wrong colour, and suffering epilepsy, Ingrid is taken to the former mental institution of Hadamar, where she encounters atrocities of the most horrific kind. Every day is a battle to stay alive. In her survival though becomes living testimony to true events that are almost too horrific to be believed. While Ingrid's colour has always ostracised her in the community, the rise of Adolf Hitler increases the level of hatred and prejudice to a new, frightening level. At school, Ingrid and her Jewish friend, Sarah, are ridiculed and marked as ‘different’ and ‘inferior’ by their teachers, and bullied mercilessly by the other children. When Ingrid begins to suffer from epileptic fits, she is forcibly sterilised and sent to Hadamar, an institution for the mentally and physically disabled. There she discovers the true horrors of the Nazi regime – she watches as her fellow patients are systematically tortured, gassed and killed.
A lesser known piece of Nazi history
This book took me through a wide range of emotions, from outrage to hope, from hope to frustration.
If you liked to read about what happened at various concentration camps, Auschwitz, Dachau, Sobibor, Treblinka, if you liked Anne Frank's Diary, you'll like this book too.
The story is told as viewed through the eyes of a young girl, Ingrid Marchand, that's why it reminded me of Anne Frank's Diary, although the stories of the two girls are very different.
It's a captivating book, it transports you to those times and you live with Ingrid step by step. There are times when you want to be in the story to desperately try to change its outcome.
Gabriel, 15/07/2019
