Praise for The Nine

"I almost didn't finish this book. Not because it wasn't extraordinary—but because it was too extraordinary. Because somewhere around the third chapter, I realized I was holding my breath, terrified that if I exhaled too loudly, these nine women might disappear like smoke, like so many others did...What breaks you isn't the brutality—though there's plenty of that. It's the tenderness...Strauss has given us more than a war story. She's given us a love story disguised as a survival story, a reminder that even in humanity's darkest hour, there were women who chose each other, who refused to let evil have the final word. These nine women didn't just survive—they proved that love can outlast anything, even death, even forgetting, even the worst that humans can do to each other."
—The Book Nook on The Nine


Finalist, Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, The Publishing Triangle

Praise for Milena and Margarete

"Strauss melds meticulous historical research with a profound and moving story of perseverance."
—The Lakeville Journal

"It might be the most compelling book you’ll ever meet."
—OutSFL

"Striking... a propulsive recounting of a powerful love. "
—Publisher Weekly, starred review

"The lives of these two brave women have been all but “erased from history.” But Strauss’ research into and reimagining of their four years together amount to an essential rediscovery of this history. Her work is as alert to the tenderness of their connection as to the immense evil of their surroundings... remarkable."
—Kirkus

"Strauss draws us skillfully into the world of the prison camp at Ravensbrück.... Milena and Margarete remind us that, amidst depravity and cruelty, the passionate friendship of women can be its own act of powerful resistance."
—Tilar Mazzeo, bestselling and award-winning author of Irene's Children and Sisters in Resistance

"Riveting, mesmerizing important.... The details and perspectives of women prisoners at Ravensbruck concentration camp are juxtaposed to these extraordinary individuals' proximity to the lives of the Martin Buber family and to Franz Kafka.... A magnificent work of contextualization that opens new doors of understanding."
—Sarah Schulman, Lambda Literary Award winner, author of Let the Record Show

"For the first time, Strauss writes about Ravensbrück as a place of a great romantic story, of love between two women. In equal parts intellectual history, queer history, and history of the Holocaust, Milena and Margarete forces us to rethink our understanding of the concentration camps."
—Anna Hájková, University of Warwick, pioneer of queer Holocaust history

"Reads like a novel, a brutal but sensory world, evocative characters and a forbidden passion that bubbles with joy in...a concentration camp!... I am so grateful for the existence of this book and for the existence of its marvellous writer. Oh, this Gwen Straus is a wonder! I'd read anything she writes, on any subject."
—Golda Goldbloom, award winning author of On Division

"Gripping, moving, and ultimately groundbreaking, this unusual account of a “passionate friendship” between two extraordinary women in Ravensbrück is a crucial contribution to the less-explored field of women in the Holocaust. Gwen Strauss’s humane and sympathetic book is a must-read."
—Ruth Franklin, author of The Many Lives of Anne Frank