Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for Three Sisters by Heather Morris

1. What do you think it was about these three sisters that meant they survived the Holocaust when so many others didn't? Was it luck or something else?
2. Why do you think the girls were so often treated better than other prisoners, by the block kapos and other guards, another fact that meant that they survived?
3. How important were relationships in the camps—between family, friends, and those in charge?
4. There is a sense that Magda felt guilt at not having been in the camp for as long as her sisters. Is this justified?
5. How do you think being in the camps shaped the people these three sisters became?
6. How did Three Sisters change your perceptions about the Holocaust in particular, and war in general? What implications does this book hold for our own time?
7. Why do you think the sisters chose to leave their home in Slovakia after the war and embark on a journey to Israel? Do you think they would have done this had it not been for their experiences in the Holocaust?
8. How do you think the sisters' experiences affected the relationships they formed after the Holocaust?
9. The scene in which the group of girls who have just survived the death march find an abandoned house and decide to take the dining table outside to eat is incredibly powerful. Why do you think they did this after everything they'd been through, rather than eating inside, and would you have done the same?
10. What was your overwhelming feeling when you finished the novel? Was it one of hope?
11. The sisters were barely older than children when they were taken to Auschwitz—Livia just fifteen. Do you think their youth gave them an advantage, or was the opposite the case?
12. Each of the sisters married a Holocaust survivor, with his own story of survival. Why do you think this might be?
13. Do you see the sisters as heroines or ordinary women?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of St. Martin's Griffin. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.