Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and author Ann Bennett for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

I found it ironic that I finished reading this book on the same day the notice below was being passed around on social media. It would seem that, as human beings, we will never learn from history, and we will continue to be cruel to the least of us. The Stolen Sisters is the second book in Ann Bennett’s historical fiction series about the Lebensborn program in Nazi Germany.

In The Orphan List, we met Margarete Weiss, who was a nurse in Nazi Germany. She was assigned to the Lebensborn program and kept secret coded records, hoping one day they could be of help to people. When she was interviewed by a news program, some of the horrors of the forced birth and stealing of babies came to light. Another part of the program involved taking “Aryans” found in countries the Nazis invaded and “Germanizing” them then resettling these children with Nazi families.

Martha and Joanna are two Polish girls who go shopping for their mother in the market when they are abducted by SS Agents. Martha is very blonde and fair, while Joanna is a bit darker due to having a different father. They are “tested” and Martha is deemed to be Aryan but Joanna is deemed to not be. Martha is sent to a special school to learn how to be a good German. Joanna is sent to a work camp. The story follows the two very different experiences during the war, while Margarete tries her best to cushion the harm being done to these children.

In light of ICE ripping children away from their parents, this is an important story to read right now. Children are just that – children. Bennett shows that Martha and Joanna are not political footballs to be tossed around, but children who don’t have anything to do with the war surrounding them. They have done nothing to garner attention from the Nazis except to exist. They aren’t dangerous. They aren’t part of the resistance. They just exist. It’s the same way children just trying to exist and attend school in Texas have to be worried about being taken from their parents. They haven’t done anything wrong; they just exist.

Without meaning to, Bennett asks the question of what is the next step when these children are picked up. Do we repeat history either way and try to settle some with “good white parents” while dismissing others? Is there a plan to nullify their identities, even while these are families who love them and who will be looking for them? The parallels to our current time are heartbreaking. Bennett has done a terrific job, although I’m not sure that was her intention when she set out to write these stories.

I encourage everyone to read The Stolen Sisters and think about what these two children go through. That is what is being advocated for when people shrug their shoulders at children being taken away from immigrants.