The Ruins in Which We Bleed: A Gripping Holocaust Novel Inspired by a Heartbreaking True Story (World War II Historical Fiction Book 3)

By Steve N. Lee (Blue Zoo, June 2025)

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages (print): 356

Via: Author request

“Run, Helena. Run!”

Mama’s terror-stricken shout echoes through the Warsaw sewers as Mama and daughter Helena flee marauding Nazis while the Warsaw ghetto goes up in smoke in this uber engaging and thoroughly absorbing historical fiction read set during World War II.

Having lost her entire family to disease and German brutality when the Sliwickis are forced into the infamous Warsaw ghetto, Helena hesitates when Mama tells her to run. But when the Germans grab Mama, Helena obeys. Running for her life, Helena soon realizes she’s lost everything. And everyone. Everyone.

Except Sparkle the cat.

Making sacrifices no child should ever have to make, seeing horrors no child should ever have to see, sixteen year-old Helena bravely battles on as her world crumbles amid random killings, slave labor, and deportations. And through it all, her compassion helps to protect her family. But then the Nazis unleash new horrors.

Told in flashback fashion, the story follows Helena’s big brother Robert as he storms out of their ghetto apartment after quarreling with Papa about fighting back against the Germans (Robert says Yes. Papa says No). Little brother Jan succumbs to typhus despite Robert and Helena’s best efforts to smuggle medicine into the ghetto for Jan. Papa is deported. Shipped east on a cattle car. Helena and Mama think their work as seamstresses for a German-owned business will shield them from future deportations.

But they’re wrong.

Only Option

Their only option is to flee into the burnt-out, crumbling and abandoned section of the ghetto and live in “the wild.” So they do.

Blackness smothered the ghetto. With no lighting from streetlamps or buildings, starlight dimly silhouetted two hunched black shapes as they crept across a strip of snowbound wasteland.

Sparkle and Szpilman

And Helena finds a little black cat. She names him Sparkle. The feline symbolizes hope and resilience. (There’s even a “cameo” by Polish Jewish pianist, classical composer and Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman. Yes, we’ve seen The Pianist. You should, too.)

Mama, we have to try. If she can survive against all the odds, maybe we can, too…. Don’t you see, Mama… She’s us, She’s us!

Trapped

Later, when their hiding place is discovered, Mama and Helena flee into the sewers. Mama is caught. Helena escapes alone. With the ghetto a raging sea of flames, explosions and gunfire, the building over Helena’s head collapses. She’s trapped underground. Starving, dying of thirst and struggling with solitude and psychosis, Helena begins to contemplate the unimaginable. And wonders if she’s all that different from the monsters responsible for her nightmare. Buried under tons of rubble, Helena also wrestles with questions about humanity, war, friendship, loyalty, and what it means to be human. Can her love for her family give her the strength to survive?

Adrenaline Rush

As with Lee’s previous historical fiction novels, The Ruins in Which We Bleed is an adrenaline rush. It grabs you in chapter one and won’t let go until the final page. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, this is a compelling story that deserves a wide audience. That being said, we have some bones to pick with it. Like:

• The title. Ugh.
• Over-use of the verbs smirk, snort, and snicker. Sometimes within a questionable context.
• The “after all she’d been through, was this really how it was going to end?” angle is so overworked, it becomes threadbare.
• Likewise, the words “gripping” and “heartbreaking” related to a holocaust novel become worn-out to the point of hackneyed and cliched.
• Irrelevant editorializing crops up occasionally. Like the part about British women who cranked out munitions, etc. during the war being “mere housewives” prior to same. Like that’s not patronizing or anything. Ditto comments like “Maybe war couldn’t always be classed as purely evil; maybe war was occasionally needed for the evolution of society.”

Calaveras County?

Note that the timeline jumps back and forth between 1940 and 1943 like the Jumping Frog Jubilee at the Calaveras County Fair. So you may want to bring your roller skates. Or a cushion.

Authentic, Intense 

That being said, The Ruins in Which We Bleed is an authentic, intense read. Among other things, it’s a compelling story about how one young woman holds on to her humanity, sanity and compassion in the midst of unspeakable cruelty and evil.  Turning pages, you feel like you’re right in the thick of things with Helena. Struggling to survive the ghetto and its drive-by shootings, street round-ups, and forced labor. Aryan blackmailers, smuggling, executions, starvation, deprivation, and disease. You can almost touch the blackness of Helena’s underground “grotto.” Smell the smoke. Feel the bleakness of Warsaw’s Serbia prison.

Powerful and poignant, the narrative is raw and it’s real. Haunting. Harrowing. Gut-wrenching.

Just like the people it depicts. And their stories. Stories that deserve to be remembered.

So although we had some issues with the book, they don’t detract from the overall read. Indeed, The Ruins in Which We Bleed is a highly readable story of incredible courage, strength, and resilience. We read it cover-to-cover in one day.

Our Rating: 4.0