Masza

Masza, a young Jewish woman, is swept up in the terror of the Holocaust. Separated from her family and all she holds dear, she is plunged into a sordid life of imprisonment and sexual slavery. Her only comfort is her friendship with a fellow woman prisoner. The spirit of Masza's mother visits her in dreamlike states, assuring her that they will be reunited soon.

Masza learns that the place of her imprisonment is Auschwitz, named after the nearby town of Oswiecim. Before the war Oswiecim was home to a large Jewish community. The word derives from ushpitzin, meaning "guests" in Yiddish and Aramaic. But who are the guests? The soldiers who rape Masza daily? The prophets who were awaited during the festival of Sukkot? Or is Masza merely a guest in her own life?

One of the SS officers becomes obsessed with Masza and steadily inflicts more and more damage on her, both physically and spiritually. He seems determined to break her spirit as well as her body, and he will ultimately be responsible for her death.

As the inevitable end draws near, Masza's mind begins to dissociate from the terror of her situation (which is a survival mechanism well documented in the modern psychiatric literature). As Masza loses touch with everyday reality, she becomes absorbed in the belief that her life is moving forwards to liberation. The bedroom in which she is being held captive becomes in her mind a cabin on board a ship travelling to Palestine, carrying refugees from the war. Her soul will survive, long after her body is destroyed. Healing and a return to life will be possible!

In the final moments as she is led into the gas chamber, Masza recognizes another Jewish soul in the haunted eyes of the man assigned to keep things ticking over smoothly in this factory of death. Indeed, this Sonderkommando slave deserves another chance at life just as she does. They will meet again in a different time and place, under a sunny sky in the mystical town of Safed in Israel.

Research for this book

The story is a fictionalised account of the author's apparent memories of a past life and death in the Holocaust. The meeting in Israel really did take place and is as described in the book.
The phenomenon of past-life memory is increasingly well documented, with Holocaust memories playing a prominent role. Studies published recently have confirmed that a number of Jewish women suffered Masza's awful fate in Nazi death camps. In 2010, an important collection of papers was published under the title Sexual Violence Against Jewish Women During the Holocaust (eds. Sonja Hedgepeth and Rochelle Saidel; Brandeis University Press, University Press of New England). Sue Randall has carefully researched all emerging material in this field to verify her personal memories and insight.

Masza has been described by readers as a difficult story well told, a page-turner with a powerful spiritual message. The profoundly human characters bring the cold facts to life and will leave the reader with a feeling of hope and amazement rather than despair.