2021 Book Review #6:The Third Daughter

 

I've discovered another historical fiction author!  She's a fantastic writer who did some major research on the topic of human trafficking of the Eastern European Jewish women in the late part of the 19th century.  

STORY SUMMARY

 It is 1889. Batya (meaning "daughter of God") is a 14 year old Russian Jewish girl who is escaping her village with her papa, her mother, and her younger sister Surale.  Her two older sisters (one married a non-Jewish boy and one is in Siberia with her husband) are no longer living in the area. The family is escaping a pogrom....Batya saw her best friend Miriam get defiled and killed by the murderers and Jew haters.

Her father is desperate and jumps at the opportunity to marry Batya off to a wealthy and distinguished gentleman they meet along the road.  This stranger, who himself is Jewish, promises that Batya will live in America and will have an easy life.

Little does the family know that this actually means he is kidnapping her, handing her over to a thug to watch while on the ship and the "America" is not North America like they all presume, but rather, South America.  Argentina to be exact. Batya has been tricked! Batya will become a prostitute, owned by Moskowitz, the man who promised to "marry" her.  Moskowitz, along with his sister Freda, runs a brothel in Buenos Aires and all of the girls are from Eastern Europe and are victims of human trafficking. 

Five years go by and now Batya is deadened in her soul by her life of forced prostitution.  She has suffered tortures, rapes, an infection of the uterus and has danced before all kinds of men.....powerful, wealthy men and poor men. She continues to hold onto the hope and dream of saving enough money to buy herself out of prostitution and bring her family to America.

She receives a letter from her sister, who thinks Batya is happily married in America and saving money to bring them to her mansion, that their dear mother has died.  Before their mother died, she had had another child...another little girl whom they named Vida.  Batya doesn't reveal that she is the scum of the earth.....a whore....it would kill her father and bring shame to her family.

 But it is one man.....Sergio Farbstein who holds the key to her freedom.  Sergio is looking for information to bring down Moskowitz and the Zwi Migdal organization (a human trafficking organization that focuses on girls and widows from Eastern European countries). Sergio pretends to buy Batya many evenings but they just sit and talk and Batya begins to steal documents from the office to try to help bring down the pimps and Zwi Migdal.

Batya also has captured the attention and love of a man named Ullman.  He is a successful jeweler.  He wants to buy Batya from Moskowitz and make her his mistress (his wife is dying). She would live in a nice apartment in the middle class section of Buenos Aires. She has to make a decision....does she go with Ullmann  or does she continue to gather evidence against the crime organization to save herself, her "sisters" (as the other housemates/prostitutes are called as they are like family) and to get her family safe passage to South America and the newly formed agricultural farms spearheaded by the Jewish German baron Maurice de Hirsch?

Will saving her self mean that her family must continue to suffer with the rising anti-Semitism in Russia??

Which will she choose?

MY THOUGHTS

This is a book that captures  the bravery of one young girl.  When the story begins, Batya is only 14 years old.  And at the end, she is only 22.  What a remarkable character she is!

Every single character (and there are many) are so well developed and move along smoothly in the plot.  Each introduction is like meeting either a new friend or a new enemy.

You will cheer Batya and Rochel. You will weep with Nettie and Ullmann. You will rejoice and be sobered.

The emotion behind this writing is vibrant.

It's a very compelling and powerful story that brings out the images of being brave...of finding inner strength in the face of grave danger.  I love that Batya's "working name" is Esperanza (Hope in Spanish). I love that she has grace and dignity in a place where all of her dignity was robbed.

The author states that all of the characters are fictitious but Zwi Migdal was a real organization that lured women into sexual slavery. This went on for 70 years!!  (And of course human trafficking/sexual slavery still continues today all over the world....yes even here in North America).   The Baron (Maurice de Hirsch) is a real person as well. He had an ambitious vision for world Jewry.  Sadly, his unprecedented generosity has been forgotten by the history books. 

The author has notes in the back which I highly encourage you to read when the story is complete.  There are also discussion questions if you want to do this as a book group.

There were many quotes that jumped out at me.  I've included 3 that really stood out:

"....dying could be as hard to accomplish as living." (pg 252, The Third Daughter by Talia Carner, c.2019)

"Life was survival and survival was hard work." (pg 294, The Third Daughter by Talia Carner, c.2019)

"The longer Batya lived, the more it became evident that God's plans were beyond her human comprehension." (pg 386, The Third Daughter by Talia Carner, c.2019)

 Because human trafficking is a very important social justice cause in our world and because my husband and I and our daughters are passionate about a certain organization that rescues people caught in sexual slavery, this book really resonated with me.  I highly recommend it!

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to mature content and subject matter).

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.