Lilac Girls (Kelly) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our talking points to help start a discussion for Lilac Girls...then take off on your own:

1. What role did—could—compassion play in the horrific conditions of Nazified Europe? What were the dangers to those who attempted to act compassionately? How might you have chosen if faced with such a dire dilemma: compassion vs. risk?

2. Talk about the different backgrounds of Caroline, Kasia, and Herta, and how their lives are shaped by their upbringing.

3. Both Caroline and Kasia make foolish mistakes. Does that affect your ability to elicit sympathy for the two characters?

4. "Man's inhumanity to man" is one of the main concerns of LiLac Girls. Talk about the "slippery slope" on which Herta finds herself. How did she end up in the untenable situation in which she finds herself? How culpable is she?

5. Were parts of this book too difficult to read? Is there a need to continue writing about these experiments?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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