Based on true events - very thought provoking and emotional read. Really transported me to another place
Review from netgalley

I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley and Atlantic Books in exchange for an honest review, thank you very much!
This is a harrowing yet incredibly beautiful story about the Warsaw ghetto, the Holocaust, and an inspiring Jewish teacher and community committed to the upbringing and wellbeing of a group of vulnerable orphans, and the importance of the treatment and understanding of children.
The fact that it is historical fiction based on real people makes it even more poignant and memorable.
Another compelling novel about one of the darkest periods or mankind's history, remembered so that we never forget, but nevertheless filled with hope, love, and the everlasting belief in the inherent good in people.

Misha and Sofia are young and in love, they are ready to commit to each other. However outside their charmed life in Warsaw world events are are more complex. Misha and Sofia are Jews and as the Nazis invade Poland they find that they are confined to the Warsaw ghetto. Both have worked with Dr Korczak, the director of an orphanage, and they are concerned about the future of their mentor and the children. As the noose tightened around Warsaw's Jews Misha and Sofia have to make important decisions and Dr Korczak has to help his children as best he can.

Based on a true story this is an uplifting tale of heroism and love despite all the travails around. Dr Korczak was a true hero and whilst Misha and Sofia were incidental characters in the true tale, their story is the glue that binds this book together. Moving as times and a reminder of how bad prejudice can be.

I thought that this book was written well, I struggled with the Polish names but that was my problem. The story was my no means romanticised, and I think that it skimmed the surface of the atrocities of the Holocaust.
The Good Doctor was a marvellous, generous intelligent man who worked out how to treat children to make their lives better. I will definitely be looking at some of his other work.
The story touches on the horrors of how the Jewish people were treated, it is sickening.
If you have an interest in the Holocaust then I wouldrecommend this book.
Thanks to NetGalley, Elisabeth Gifford and Atlantic Books/ Corvus for the opportunity to read and review this amazing book.

Misha and Sophia are two students in love and about to marry at the start of ww2 and they try to flee the Warsaw ghetto to spend their life together. They are forced back however and Misha is working for the amazing Dr Korczak trying to save the orphan children from the Nazi's.

The story is harrowing but also fascinating as it follows the stories of the main characters, how Misha and Sophia are separated but determined to live to find each other again and the lengths Dr Korczak will go to save the children, the appalling conditions in the ghetto and how few survived. If you are interested in the holocaust definitely a book to read.

I’ll be honest and say that when I read Elisabeth Gifford’s previous book, Secrets of the Sea House, I found the story line set in the past much more compelling than that set in the present. So, I was delighted to learn about this book set entirely in the period of the Second World War. The subject matter, well, that’s very far from delightful but the author delivers a powerful, compelling account of the fate of those who struggled for survival in the Warsaw ghetto. Sadly, most of them failed in that struggle. Of the half a million people who lived in the Warsaw ghetto, less than one percent survived to tell their story.

With the benefit of hindsight, one reads about the unfolding events in the ghetto with a mounting sense of horror. I’ll give you an example that sums this up and which sent shivers down my spine. News comes that some of the men imprisoned by the Nazis are to be released to carry out construction work at a site close to Warsaw. ‘It’s a new work camp called Treblinka.’

The inhabitants of the ghetto greet each new atrocity with shock; they simply cannot believe that human beings could do such things to other human beings (and who can blame them). ‘So this is the ghetto, a square mile of hell containing half a million people slowly dying of hunger.’ Gradually the Jewish community begin to realise the objective of the Nazis is their total elimination and their focus switches to trying to ensure the survival of their children at the very least, those who represent their future. ‘Our highest and holiest duty is to ensure that our children survive these tragic times.’

Each day becomes a daily struggle to find food with only goods smuggled in from outside the ghetto keeping people alive – and barely, at that. Diseases, such as typhus, are rife in such squalid conditions. Grotesquely, the presence of disease is welcomed by the Nazi regime because it will do the work of eliminating the Jews more quickly than starvation and deter any contact from the areas of Warsaw outside the ghetto. It also feeds into their appalling belief in the Jewish people as tainted.

However, behind the harrowing depiction of the grotesque treatment meted out to the Jewish community of Warsaw, there is the wonderful love story of Misha and Sophia. ‘If he has Sophia, then he has everything.’ Despite personal tragedies and enforced separation lasting years, they never give up their belief that they will one day build a home together.

The Good Doctor of Warsaw is also a story of courage and dedication. Those qualities are personified in Dr Janusz Korczak. “All I can tell you is that a beautiful life is always a difficult life.” Just when you think nothing can be worse than what you’ve already read, the children of the ghetto are rounded up and taken to the railway station. ‘The march of the children pulls a dark cloud across the sky behind it. Finally, the ghetto understands what the Germans intend. If they can take the children, they will take everybody.’ Dr Korczak remains committed to the welfare of the children under his care to the very end, passing up opportunities to escape himself. As he says, “You do not leave a child alone to face the dark.”

At times, the events in the book are almost unbearably distressing to read but then the book should be uncomfortable reading because it bears witness to one of the greatest atrocities of the Second World War. I praise the author for shining a light on this story of, yes, cruelty and barbarism, but also of courage, resilience and hope. As well as the history of a persecuted community, it’s also the story of real individuals. The author’s website has fascinating photographs of Misha, Sophia, Dr Korczak and the children.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Atlantic Books/Corvus, in return for an honest review.

The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elizabeth Gifford is a story about life in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War and the efforts of Doctor Janusz Korczak's to look after two hundred children in an orphanage and save them from being sent to a concentration camp. The people are badly treated and one young couple Sophia and Misha are forced apart during the German occupation. This is a sad story especially as it was written from true events. I would like to thank NetGalley and Atlantic Books for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.