Up from the Ashes

by Sharon Cameron

#1 New York Times bestselling author Sharon Cameron returns with a stunning story about the fight to survive - and find love - in the face of the ugliest of nightmares, based on the true story of two heroes and their resistance in the Sobibor death camp during the Holocaust.Saartje has already survived two concentration camps when she is sent to Sobibor, a death camp that is infamous for forcing the inmates to perform sick entertainment for their Nazi guards if they wish to live. When Saartje is paired with a young Polish man and ordered to waltz, she doesn't understand the German command.But her partner does.The young Polish man, Chaim Engel, doesn't know how to waltz.But Saartje does.Together, the pair dance well enough to live through the night, and from that moment on, Chaim and Saartje will do whatever it takes to keep each other alive.When, on October 14th, 1943, a prisoner revolt begins, Saartje and Chaim escape alongside 300 other prisoners amid the confusion and bloodshed. With only each other, the pair must survive the ensuing manhunt and find a place to hide if they want any chance of making it out of the war alive.Based on the true stories of Chaim and Saartje Engel, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Light in Hidden Places, Sharon Cameron, crafts an evocative, beautiful thriller that celebrates hope, survival, and the power of love in the face of impossible odds.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Holocaust, Historical, Young Adult, World War II, Fiction

416 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication October 6, 2026

About the author

Sharon Cameron was awarded the 2009 Sue Alexander Most Promising New Work Award by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators for her debut novel, The Dark Unwinding. When not writing Sharon can be found thumbing dusty tomes, shooting her longbow, or indulging in her lifelong search for secret passages.

Reviews

[Christine Marie]

NEW SHARON CAMERON BOOK YES YES YESSSSS YES YES YES YES YESYEYSEYSYESEYES now I FINALLY have a book release to look forward to!!

[Kassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic/Scholastic Press for providing me with an advance eBook copy in exchange for an honest review.

Up from the Ashes by Sharon Cameron is set during World War II in Poland at the Sobibor death camp. We follow Selma Wijnberg as she is arrested for being Jewish and brought to the camp. Upon her arrival, she is ordered to dance with a pistol pointed at her. The boy who steps forward to dance with her is Chaim Engel. They speak different languages, but somehow, love becomes their language.

From there begins a heartbreaking and incredibly moving story of love, hope, resilience, and survival.

The prisoners of Sobibor begin to form a daring plan of escape. Will they make it to freedom hand in hand, or will they be killed and disappear into the smoke?

Knowing that this story is based on the true story of Chaim and Selma Engel made it hit even harder. I found myself in awe of everything they endured and the strength it took to keep going when they had every reason to lose hope. Their love gave them something to hold onto in a place designed to strip people of their humanity.

There are honestly no words that feel big enough to do this book justice. I cried for Selma and Chaim. I cried for the survivors. And I cried for all of the people who never made it out.

This was a devastating, heartbreaking, and beautiful story, and one that will stay with me for a long time. It reminded me that even in the darkest moments, hope can survive, and sometimes, love can be the thing that keeps us fighting.

[Melanie Dulaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sobibor killing camp in German-occupied Poland during WWII is the primary setting for Sharon Cameron’s Up From the Ashes, a hard to read survival story with a 60 year love story as its heart.

Sharon Cameron uses the real life love story of Selma Wijnberg and Chaim Engel to tell the truth of Sobibor’s abuse and killing of nearly 200,000 Jews. Trains packed with Jews, primarily from Poland and the Netherlands, were unloaded, given a speech about how they will be feed and house if they work and then only a few sent to work and the rest stripped of all clothing and belongings, hair cut short, and then forced to dance and sing their way to their deaths. The few selected to work would be assigned to forestry groups to cut the wood necessary to burn the bodies of their fellows, sent to sorting rooms to separate the belongings into piles intended to go to worthy Germans, the incinerator or used to keep workers minimally clothed. Cameron goes into the abuses, random killings and starvation in depth as she relays the way Chaim saved her during selection by asking her to death and continues to save her by teaching her the ways to pilfer food from the clothes they sorted, how to avoid the attention of the guards, and above all, to keep focusing on him, his eyes, his presence when the hellishness got too close. All this with Chaim speaking Yiddish and Polish and Selma only Dutch. Interspersed between chapters set in Sobibor and labeled with the date and days left there and those set in places on Selma’s route to the camp and labeled with the date and days until Sobibor, Cameron provides details of Selma’s childhood, young adulthood, and the betrayal of fellow Hollanders that lead to her journey through various prisons until arriving in Sobibor. The conclusion of the narrative focuses on the collapse of the Nazi hierarchy and subsequent revolt and escape of roughly 300 of Sobibor’s prisoners, Selma and Chaim’s hiding until the war’s end, and their eventual immigration to the United States. Extensive back matter clarifies Cameron’s research methodology, the licenses taken, what is known about key players after the war ends, and several photographs of those players and the camp itself.

While Selma and Chaim’s love for one another gives them the hope they need to endure and survive, this is not a book that contains much hope. It is, overall, brutal, and does not leave any doubt of the Nazis’ deliberate attempt to annihilate an entire race. With the intensive interviews and research using materials from their family, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and more, this book leans strongly to the non-fiction side rather than merely historical fiction but as there were times the blanks had to be filled with supposition or with one person’s remembrance of an event over another’s, it is classified as historical fiction. Readers are certain to come away with new knowledge and a deeper appreciation for what many suffered before, during and well after the war.

Thought-provoking, informative and highly recommended for grades 7 through adult with content warnings for death and physical and mental abuse.

Thanks for the print arc, Scholastic.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a huge fan of Sharon Cameron's other 3 WWII novels, I was very grateful to receive the ARC of Up from the Ashes, and I was not disappointed. Similar to The Light in Hidden Places, Up from the Ashes tells a real-life love story that blossoms in the very worst of circumstances. Despite not even initially speaking the same language, Chaim and Selma meet and fall in love in Sobibor, a concentration camp. Chaim does whatever he can to protect Selma, and their moments spent together offer an escape from the horror of their surroundings and fragile hope. I appreciated the nuances of Selma's character, that she makes the best choice she can in the moment, that she has a weakness for pretty things, that at times her emotions and hotheaded nature overcome logic. She's not a paragon, but she's always sympathetic and always feels real. Chaim's love and care for Selma is so heart-warming, and his soft-heartedness makes that fact that he faces such terrible circumstances all the worse.
Cameron's prose always draws me in immediately, and the sadistic guards' disregard for life and capricious killing of prisoners meant that the story is fraught with nearly unbearable tension. Having read many books about the Holocaust before, taken a History seminar on the subject, and even having visited Dachau, I was still blindsided by the awfulness the victims of Sobibor experienced, and the depths of cruelty that just defy comprehension. Sadly, those who survived Sobibor continued to face much hardship and discrimination.
I'm appreciative of the way Cameron closes the book with an extensive author's note, which includes photographs, the fates of all the major figures described in the book, and how she wove the real-life accounts of those imprisoned at Sobibor into a novel. In her closing, Cameron echoed something I dwelt on throughout the book, that every single person whose death is mentioned in passing had a full life and history just the same as Chaim and Selma. While there are so many stories we will never know, continuing to tell the stories of Chaim, Selma, Ula, Mimi, Esther, Leon, and all the others will help ensure that while Sobibor is no more, the world will never forget what transpired there.

[Janine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping and horrific story of survival during WWII designated YA but still a fine read for adults.

Selma Wijnberg is Jewish and she is being deported to the infamous Sobibor concentration camp where she meets Chaim Engel - this is a true story and forms the basis for telling the story of the cruelty of the Nazis and the Sobibor concentration camp where nearly 20,000 Polish and Dutch Jews died.

The book starts with Selma and Chaim, neither of whom speak the other’s language, being forced to dance by a Nazi guard. The chapters alternate between number of days until Selma is deported to and number of days left until Selma leaves Sobibor along with a corresponding date. This way we learn about Selma’s life before and during imprisonment. The chapters that go in minutes right before the escape are excruciating but when the next chapter segues to a day before arriving in Sobibor I thought I’d pull my hair out it was that suspenseful.

The atrocities depicted are real “based on eyewitness accounts of Chaim and Selma or other survivors” as are the people in the book, some with their actual names and some as hybrids of imprisoned people. The Sobibor uprising in October 14, 1943, happened - at that time there were about 600 people there and approximately 300 May gave escaped with about 47 to 60 actually surviving the Nazi sweep of the forest until the final liberation. The Author’s Note st the end is an amazing compile of pictures and mini bios of the real people who are part of this Sobibor story. Don’t miss reading it.

As I have stated in many of my historical fiction reviews, this genre is so important. It brings to life events and people that are often unknown or forgotten and in doing this history is preserved and not erased. This is one of the reasons I gave this book five stars. Preserving truthfulness in history in these days of DEI is incredibly important. Also the enduring love story that started out in such a heinous place deserves a star in and of itself. And while I’m not crazy about YA writing per se, I applaud the author for choosing this group to write the story to - we must keep history alive for future generations.

My thanks to NetGalley and Scholastic Press for “granting my wish” and granting me access to this ARC.

[Ann Hutchison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Scholastic Press and NetGalley for the advanced ecopy of this wonderful book. This review is voluntary and all my own opinions.

I don’t think I can find the right words to express how this book affected me. I have always loved reading books about the holocaust starting with Anne Frank’s story when I was in 8th grade. Most of the stories I have read have been about Auschwitz. I had briefly heard the story of this camp where prisoners had planned an escape all together, but this brought a whole new understanding for me. I know the treatment of Jews in the camps were devastating, but I was not prepared for everything that I read. The sheer amount of Jews who were murdered in one location is shocking, and the punishments they had for literally nothing are hard to fathom.

The story of Selma and Chaim was inspiring and heartbreaking all at once. The fact that they were able to find love and have hope in these circumstances is beyond belief. Even coming from two completely different cultures, they were able to connect in a way that lasted a lifetime. I loved hearing how they encouraged each other to keep going and to “come back” to each other no matter what. The way they took care of each other and fought together was another example of inspiration that came from this story.

Sobibor was a place that held so much hate and prejudice. It is a place that would have been forgotten or that people would have never believed existed if not for the bravery of those who survived and decided to tell their story. I pray that this story will continue to be told and that humanity will continue to learn from it. It is so necessary for our world.

This is the first book I have read by Sharon Cameron. I can honestly say that I will absolutely be reading more. She is an excellent writer who stays true to the story that actually happened to the best of her ability. I also appreciate the epilogue and the explanation of the people of Sobibor and what happened to them after, if they were among those who made it out. Thank you, Ms. Cameron, for writing this book. It has made a huge impact on me as well as so many others.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharon Cameron is one of my favorite historical authors, so I was delighted to receive an ARC of UP FROM THE ASHES. Cameron has become a master of uncovering remarkable--almost unbelievable--historical wartime events, then breathing life into them with her detailed, carefully researched fictional stories.
UP FROM THE ASHES is the vivid account of two actual people, Selma--a Dutch Jew, and Chaim--a Polish Jew, who find each other in a Polish death camp and draw close, in spite of the fact they don't speak the same language.
Cameron's description of life in a Nazi camp is horrifying, encompassing the sights, the smells, the hunger, the beatings; yet the Jews who scrape to survive there are described with Cameron's skillful hand as multidimensional characters who feel a range of emotions from joy to misery and despair to hope. The chapters effectively skip back and forth between life in Sobibor and life before capture, the contrast helping the reader get to know the people in the camp and their individual personalities.
Selma and Chaim draw close to each other as they struggle to keep themselves and their friends alive, and in spite of all the odds, their story has a satisfying ending. I had never heard of the Sobibor death camp before, but Cameron details the actual revolt and escape of prisoners there.
Even though this book is classified Young Adult, it can certainly be appreciated by adult readers. I recently reread THE HIDING PLACE, Corrie Ten Boom's memoir of her and her family's efforts to aid Jews in Holland, and this book is a good companion read for that one.
I hope to see Cameron on her book tour this coming fall for UP FROM THE ASHES and hear more about the real people she depicts and the research she did for this gripping story. See her if you have the chance--she's a riveting speaker!

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is based upon the true story of Selma Wijnberg and Chaim Engel. Selma was from Holland and Chaim was from Poland. They meet and fall in love, in of all places. the death camp of Sobibor. The offenses that brought them there; they were both Jews.

I have read a lot of books about the holocaust. I have read witness accounts and historical accounts and not a one was an easy read. This book was written in such a manner that I could not put it down. Selma and Chaim were real people and they struggled through every day not knowing if they would live through that day. They leaned on each other from the moment they met. Neither one speaking the other's language.

I am 70 years old, so WWII and the holocaust, the genocide of millions of Jewish people was not that far ended when I was born. We were taught about it in school and I still remember watching a film in grade school of what was found in the camps. The bodies, the belongings, the horror burned into my young brain. I am so very glad that the author wrote this book. It was a story of hope and from what I have read, those who had hope survived, those who did not, did not. Not that all were given a chance to even hope. The time for this book is now. I never in my life thought that we would forget or that we would allow this to ever happen again, but I look around me and I am frightened by what I see.

I will buy this book and I will give it as a gift to many who need to read this. I will pray we never have to see such a thing again. God brought these two people together and they told their story to the world and now we can help bring it to others through this book, thanks to Sharon Cameron. It wasn't just a story of survival, but of an incredible love that so few people ever experience.

I would like to thank Scholastic books and Netgalley for the honor of this early read.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Scholastic and Netgalley for the ARC.
This book is based on the true story of Selma Wijnberg and Chaim Engel as a way to describe the killing camp, Sobibor in Poland which killed over 200,000 Jews during WWII.
The book goes back and forth from the number of days before entering Sobibor, days until leaving Sobibor. Our story begins in Holland with Selma living with her family where they run a hotel before Holland is occupied by the Germans. Once the Nazi's take over, things happen quickly, her dad dies, and Selma goes into hiding. After some time, she is found and send to Sobibor, where she smells fire and burning flesh. She is saved immediately by Chaim when he asks her to dance to entertain the wardens, and he spends the rest of the time in Sobibor keeping her safe.
The story describes the horrific conditions of the camp--the abuse, starvation, disease, and death so the readers has a very clear picture of what it would have been like to be a prisoner there. When Selma and Chaim and 300 others revolt and escape, Selma and Chaim found a place to hide until the end of the war.
Even after the war, they still had trouble finding a place to live, and eventually ended up in the United States.

This was a difficult, but important read, and any HS or upper MS interested in the Holocaust will want to read this book. I will be purchasing a copy for my MS library.

[L.A. Montgomery · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very difficult read and I can not even begin to imagine what it must have been like to have actually lived through the Holocaust. Sharon Cameron is an amazing story teller, she has a way of opening doors to worlds and stories that need to be heard. Up from the Ashes is a story that needs to be heard.

Told from two perspectives, Up from the Ashes is based on a true story about the Sobibor death camp during the Holocaust. Even though the main characters didn't speak the same language, they managed to fall in love and save each other many times over while in the camp. This is the story of their imprisonment, their escape, and their journey to freedom. I believe that is is truly inspiring that the main characters were able to find love and friendships, despite being surrounded by hatred and constantly fearing for their lives. I think that this story is did a good job of showing that just because everyone imprisoned during the Holocaust was freed at the end of the war, their pain and suffering did not end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic for an arc of this book. All opinions are my own.

[Stormi Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Up From The Ashes
By: Sharon Cameron

5 Stars

This was the story of a young girl just coming of age who is slung into a war that she did nothing to cause, but being born. Being born a jew. Will she survive with her soul in tact? Or will she go out with the smoke?

To say this is a book filled with emotion would be an understatement. It was real. It was raw. It was hope. It was pain. It was survival. This story is so gripping from the very first page. The fact this was based on a true story makes it all the more soul grabbing. I have read many books based on this subject. This one was different. It was well researched and as a reader, I loved all the history that comes after. It really helps to paint an even brighter picture on the images that come from this story. It was written so very well. It was done with both repsect and grace. It was descriptive and emotional. It was sad and hopeful at the same time. It will be a book that I will remember for a long time. Some memories never fade.

*I want to thank Netgalley and the author for this book in return for my honest review*

Stormi Ellis
Boundless Book Reviews

[Bonnie Grover · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is based on the true story of two heroes and their resistance in the Sobibor death camp during the Holocaust. Selma has already survived two concentration camps when she is sent to Sobibor, a death camp that is infamous for forcing inmates to perform sick entertainment for Nazi guards if they wish to live. Together Selma and her Polish partner dance well enough to live through the night. From that moment on, Chaim and Selma will do whatever it takes to keep each other alive.

I have read a lot of Holocaust stories and had not ever heard of the Sobibor Death Camp. This well-crafted story, is a story of survival, hope, triumph and power of love in the face of impossible odds.
“Triumph over hate, over trauma, over unimaginable adversity and the weight that adversity then forces a person to carry through life. It was a triumph only possible because of hope. And always, the catalyst for hope is love.

[SFSUKI · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic for this eARC. While I knew the story of the Sobibor uprising, I didn't know about Chaim and Selma. This meant that while I had an idea of what was going to happen, I didn't know specifics, and it was a good, well paced read. The Author's Note at the end was very thorough, and I appreciate the tying up of lose ends and differentiation of fact and fiction. The horrors of the camp, the victims, and the difficulty of communicating were all facets of the story that I thought the author handled well. I would definitely suggest this to historical fiction readers, or readers who may be reluctant to read Holocaust literature, as the ending is more uplifting than most.

[Carlyn Morenus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very difficult read, the harrowing account of life and death in a Nazi extermination camp in WWII. All based on real people and factual accounts. Young Selma, a Dutch Jew, ends up at Sobibor, Poland, together with two other young women with whom she had become inseparable. In chapters that switch between the camp and Selma's pre-camp life, we learn her story. The descriptions of the atrocities are unflinching, and make for a very dark read. Even after liberation, the prejudice against Jews -- and Dutch -- and Poles -- and anyone who was not "the same" -- persisted.

Not for the faint of heart, but stories like this need to be told and made public.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This extraordinary book traces the Dutch Jew Selma Wijnberg on her parallel journeys to and through the Nazi extermination camp in Sobibor, Poland in 1944. Hope and compassion are as scare as food and just as vital to survival. While the presentation of this Holocaust narrative includes fiction, most of the who, what, where, and when are factual.

My complete review will be posted after it is published in the November 2026 Historical Novel Review.

[Shae · Rating 5 out of 5]

ADD to your TBR! 5⭐️ “But we have hope…” Sobibor death camp was real and love didn’t need a common language. 🤯 we still love in a world where it is dangerous to be Jewish. Hoping for change! TY for sharing w/#BookPosse

[Karen KTB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend!

[Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharon Cameron has become one of those auto read authors for me. I see her name, I get the book. Each of her World War II novels has told about an aspect of the war that I was able unfamiliar with. Of course I knew about the camps. I knew that most people outside of the camps had no clue about the terrible conditions and mass extermination taking place within the camps. I knew people tried to escape, but I had never read about a successful mass escape. This was a difficult read. In fact, I had to put it down several times. But I came back each time because of the love, determination, and hope Selma and Chaim shared.. ***I received an ARC for my honest review.