UP FROM THE ASHES, by Sharon Cameron, Scholastic Press, Oct. 6, 2026, Hardcover, $19.99 (young adult)
A Dutch woman and Polish man find love and the will to survive in a Nazi death camp in Up From the Ashes, by Sharon Cameron.
Selma Wijnberg is a criminal, a prisoner. Because she is Jewish. For this crime, in the depths of Hitler’s occupation of Holland, Selma is deported to the Sobibor death camp, sentenced to sort the clothes of the dead while a smoke made of thousands blackens the sky. And in the light of this enormous funeral pyre, at the end of a Nazi pistol, Selma is ordered to dance. The hand that offers to dance with her is strong. Steady. It belongs to Chaim Engel. Chaim is a Polish Jew and also a prisoner. Chaim and Selma don’t speak the same language. But sometimes, love doesn’t need a language.
Who falls in love in the middle of hell? Chaim and Selma do. And who knew that love could kindle so much hope.
But when the prisoners of Sobibor hatch a daring plan of escape, it is time to kill or be killed. The gate or the fire. Chaim and Selma will go out on their feet, or out with the smoke. In an hour of terror and panic, of bullets and bloodshed, Chaim and Selma discover that hope–and two hands twined tightly together–can be the key to keeping two people alive. —Synopsis provided by Scholastic Press
Up From the Ashes is based on the true story of Selma Wijnberg and Chaim Engel, and the infamous revolt and escape of the Sobibor death camp prisoners in October 1943. It’s one of the hardest novels I’ve read. Not because the writing is difficult but because author Sharon Cameron excels at dropping readers right into the mix with seemingly no way out. As the reader, you are forced to witness the atrocities from beside Selma and Chaim.
Selma and Chaim shared their experiences throughout their later lives, and gave multiple oral history interviews about the uprising. Though Up From the Ashes is a novel, Cameron drew from those histories, those of other survivors and her own interviews with Chaim and Selma’s children. Cameron made sure that every person in the book was real, though a few have fictionalized names. And it’s this attention to detail that gives the book weight and makes it stick with you long after completion.
Up From the Ashes is a harrowing read you can’t put down. It captures the Nazi depravity in great detail while still offering hope and humanity. It’s a heavy but worthwhile read.
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