🎙🎙🎙 Narrated by Matt Armstrong🎙🎙🎙
Description from Goodreads:
"Before Auschwitz, before the gas chambers, there was Ponary—a forest outside Vilnius where 75,000 Jews were executed during World War II. In the beginning, the killers weren’t the Nazis. They were neighbors. From Malice to is a haunting historical novel that reveals one of the Holocaust’s earliest and most overlooked atrocities—the Ponary Massacre in Lithuania—where local militias carried out mass murder while SS officers stood by and took notes.
Olek Kosmen, a young Jewish man, becomes an unwilling eyewitness and chronicler. Hiding in the woods, he secretly records the horrors in a journal—until he’s captured and forced into the “Burning Brigade,” a prisoner unit ordered to exhume and destroy the bodies to hide the crime. Meanwhile, his fiancée escapes to neutral Sweden, and her family is exiled to the frozen gulags of Siberia. Their survival depends on impossible choices—and an escape tunnel dug with bare hands beneath a mass grave. Meticulously researched and deeply moving, this story is not just a look back at history—it’s a warning. In an age when antisemitism is once again on the rise, From Malice to Ashes reminds us what happens when hatred goes unchallenged and silence becomes complicity."
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I've just finished listening to From Malice to Ashes by Gary W. Toyn and I have to say it is a properly heavy but necessary bit of historical fiction.
I'm always on the lookout for stories that shed light on the bits of the Second World War we don't talk about enough and this one focuses on the Ponary massacre in Lithuania. I've read a fair few books set during this war but I have to admit I've never come across or read anything about what happened in this particular area or what the people there had to endure. It's a brutal look at what happened before the concentration camps even became the norm where neighbours turned on neighbours and the level of betrayal is just gutting.
The story follows several families torn apart by both the Nazis and the Soviets and Toyn does a brilliant job of weaving together their struggle for survival. It's clearly been meticulously researched and I was really impressed that the author includes references and extracts at the end to show exactly where the historical evidence was found. This added a whole other layer of authenticity to the narrative. While it doesn't shy away from the horrors there's a real thread of moral courage and hope running through it that stops it from being completely bleak.
It is a truly haunting account and it's one of those books that stays with you long after the final chapter. There were definitely times when it was difficult to listen to because of the subject matter but the writing is so engaging that I felt compelled to stay in my car for longer than was necessary just to keep in the story.
Now for the audiobook itself. Matt Armstrong is clearly a talented narrator and for the most part I thought he was really good. He has a great pace and managed the tension of the more claustrophobic scenes perfectly. However I did find myself wishing they'd gone with a dual narration setup. Having a male narrator do the female parts felt a bit forced and distracting as it came across as a bit parody style at times. It was a shame because it took me out of the moment during some of the most emotional scenes. It definitely would've worked much better with both male and female narrators to give those characters the depth they deserved.
It's a powerful look at a forgotten chapter of history and despite my niggles with the narration style the story itself is far too important to miss. I'm glad I gave it a listen even if I had to take a few breaks to process the weight of it all.
My thanks must go to the author, American Legacy Media and NetGalley for enabling me to listen to and share my thoughts of this important book.
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