Summary

The novel opens with a description of the No. 232 Ost brothel, and a flashback to the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where the old women and children had been directed straight to the gas chambers. It then moves to an introduction by the narrator, who reveals that he is in love with the story's protagonist, Hanka Kaudersova and summarizes the novel's plot. The narrator provides snapshots of Hanka's (nicknamed Skinny) earliest days in the brothel, the rules by which they lived, the threats - both overt and implied, and the hard, cold, work. Skinny thinks about her family, who all died at Auschwitz-Birkenau; her mother and younger brother in the gas chambers, and her father through suicide. Estelle, with whom she shares a bed to keep warm, tells her that she talks about her father in her sleep.

Analysis

The first chapter of...