As a pianist and musician, I was initially intrigued by thIs story of how music played a part in surviving one of life's most horrendous events. I am also drawn to stories based upon real life events and people but this one was rough!

It is really difficult to find things I like in a story that is filled with so much violence, hatred and evil but I was interested to learn about the role music played in allowing the women to maintain a sense of rebellion and comraederie. From teaching music in camp to forming a choir, music gave them hope and helped maintain their sanity.
Music was also used to drown out the unthinkable and factored into the very creepy obsession one son had with his mother.
The author's notes both at the beginning and end are very important; without them I would not have been able to keep reading. I had to know there was some truth to the story!

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read this one in exchange for my honest thoughts!

The Rebel Pianist of Majdanek by Nicola Pittam is a Historical Fiction Holocaust story based on real life pianist Mosha Gebert who, as a teenager, skillfully played with passion and emotion which affected people tremendously. Mosha's delicate hands were her life and she went to great lengths to protect them. When she was forced to the killing camp Majdanek, Commandant Josef Hanke recognized the girl he fell in love with years earlier as she played at a concert. He ordered her to play for him over and over but she refused as she would not play on a Nazi's terms, even on pain of death. Dignity was more important to her. Unfortunately, her bunkmates suffered from starvation due to her stance so daily existence for them grew even more desperate. Many women understandably despised her. Every day they were humiliated, tortured, punished, worked, endured insects and so much more. Even when Mosha's sister was forced into SS prostitution, she did not waver. In a way her actions are incomprehensible, yet I admire her motives. We would not know how we would react under such deplorable conditions.

Music played unique roles in these camps from gathering prisoners together to remember their homeland to being forced to sing German songs and tortured if not to the Nazi soldiers' liking to attempting to cover up the sounds of heinous murders. Mosha was so desperate to avoid playing for the Commandant that she did the unthinkable at great risk. Russian "liberation" came and there were few survivors.

The story is harrowing, engrossing, gut churning and poignant. In my view characters were not always convincing. I got a sense of the prisoners' terrible plight and grief but sometimes it wasn't powerful enough considering their extreme suffering. However, the story is memorable and moved me deeply, as Holocaust books always do.

My sincere thank you to Ad Lib Publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this heart wrenching novel.

I struggled reading the Rebel Pianest of Majdanek.

I have read a lot of books on the Holocaust, and yet this one seemed more fictional the the history/non fiction that it was classed as, though I do believe that Mosha lived and was a talented musician in life.

The writing seemed disjointed and some things did not ring for me. The way that a starving and beaten woman refused to play for principal is a strong and powerful message however in the story she just seemed arrogant and unlikeable as she chose to allow people to get hurt and even more degraded for her pride.

I also found the writing difficult, half written as a story and half written as a play… and then the end was rushed as if the author was out of time, there is no way that the Nazi commandant wouldn’t be aware that the Russian forces were around the corner and be more interested in the torture of a single Jewish girl then in running to save his neck.

Thank you NetGalley and Ad Lib Publishers!

Due to the nature and topic of this book I will be keeping this very brief and to the point.

I am unable to give this a higher rating because I felt the writing lacked consistency in tone and intensity. Some parts felt rushed and some parts felt overworked and while some parts seemed underplayed there were parts that were completely overplayed.

This book is an ok story.

Here is where I had issues, the camp is a concentration camp. Mosha sister is saved. She must become a prostitute.

Josef punishes Mosha by withholding food. For the entire women's camp.Still she does not play. THEY ARE STARVING! I understand principles, I understand morals, but my goodness, people are starving because Mosha refuses to play a song....unbelievable.

The end was so abrupt I had no idea what was going on. Mosha is just in Josef's hut and then Russians walk in and shot him. How against the odds are that? No one, not one guard came to warn Josef that the Russians were coming?

I said, ok, I will read the epilogue, because I was confused if this was a true story or not. Not one mention of what happened to this "mosha gebert" after the war or anything. It talked about the concentration camps, but not what happened after.

I guess for me, I need more clarification that this was an actual HISTORY/NON FICTION book. It seemed too contrived, too above morals to be anything but a flight of fantasy from the author.

The amazing story of a musician who fights to keep her love of music and belief in its power in the darkest of places. I am glad that the author did not chose to place her pianist in Auschwitz like most other authors writing in this era.