The Last Checkmate is a novel written by Gabriella Saab. This is another in the long list of Holocaust fiction. The theme of chess that runs throughout this book, as a connection for the young girl who has been brought to the concentration camp. Marie Florkowska, is a Polish teenager who is working for the resistance. She is captured and tortured to find out her accomplices. Then she and her family are sent to Auschwitz. She is escapes immediate death when Karl Fritzsch, the camp deputy notices a chess piece she has been carrying.
Marie is able to survive by playing chess. Fritzsch keeps her alive having her play chess with himself, other officers and prisoners for his entertainment. Interestingly this is a story of a Polish citizen who did not agree with the Germans taking over Poland and killing off all the Jews there. Marie and her family were working with the underground to save Jewish people.
This is another historical novel in the Holocaust genre. It is interesting that this plot shows us how the Polish were prisoners were treated in the camps. This is a book that takes the reader back and forth between a young girl's experience in a concentration camp and afterwards trying to exact revenge on her oppressor. An interesting story but it would have been better in my opinion if it had been based on a real character. Though there is some historical accuracy and and some characters based on real people, the main character is not based on a real person which I think would have made this a better story.
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