Dancing with the Enemy / Paul Glaser 299 pp.

Glaser is Dutch and only as an adult learned that his family was Jewish.  He became particularly interested in the story of his Aunt Rosie, a widow living in Sweden and an Auschwitz survivor.  He tells her story, mostly by reconstructing it through her extensive correspondence, and some conversations at the end of her life. 

There's no doubt that Rosie is fabulous book material.  She was a dancer and teacher of some renown in European cities in the 1930s, and a bit of a rebellious good-time girl as well.  She was betrayed to the Germans by her ex-husband and another ex-lover and sent first to Westerbork near Amsterdam, and later to Auschwitz.  She survived by the force of her personality, good looks, and, I suspect, an instinct for which tasks it was safest to be assigned to.  She had more than one lover among the guards, and became an entertainer for their soirees.  Yet it's clear she also had great personal integrity.  After the war she testified against her betrayers and left the Netherlands forever, feeling that her countrymen and women did not live up to their later reputation as heroic resisters of German power, citing the high rate of Jewish deportations from Holland with respect to other European countries, most notably Denmark.  A fascinating story told in mediocre style.