Living Memorials: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp by Catherine Hokin

And I know one thing more - that the Europe of the future cannot exist without commemorating all those, regardless of nationality, who were killed at that time with complete contempt and hate... Andrzej Szczypiorski, Prisoner 

The above quote appears on the wall at Sachsenhausen, a

 Sachsenhausen main gate

concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin whose liberation took place seventy four years ago today, on the 22nd April 1945. I visited the camp a few months ago as part of a research trip. It was, of course, a deeply unsettling experience - like any of these facilities, no matter how much you read before you go, you are not prepared for the emotions they engender.

The first thing that is difficult to comprehend about Sachsenhausen strikes you before you get to it: this is no isolated space tucked away from prying eyes. The camp is situated in the small town of Oranienburg, 22km or less than an hour's train journey from the centre of Berlin. High-ranking officers lived in mansions around the perimeter and a large SS housing estate bordered the camp - local girls married the men who served there and families lived backing onto the walls and within earshot of the camp's brickworks and shooting gallery. Prisoners were marched through the town between the camp and forced labour details and there are accounts of the residents closing their doors and shutters at the sound of marching feet. The Camp Commandant's office was landscaped with trees and a duck pond and the barracks for the guards were surrounded by gardens. It is almost surreal how much part of the local fabric the camp was and how much of a village feel was created for the men who ran it. 

 Plan of the camp showing its triangular shape

Sachsenhausen was established in 1936 and was initially used to imprison "undesirables" during the prettifying of Berlin that formed the background to the 1936 Olympics. Between then and 1945, over 200,000 people were interned there, including Jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, “career criminals” and “antisocials”. By 1944, about 90 % of the internees were non-Germans, primarily citizens of the Soviet Union and Poland. The camp quickly became the model of what the National Socialists believed a concentration camp should be: an expression of absolute power. The barracks' triangular placement, fanning out from the parade ground, means that every aspect was overlooked by a huge machine gun set on top of the gate. If the prisoners faced the other way they were confronted by a gallows and the roll-call area is bordered by a running track where shoes were tested on a variety of materials, including cinders and cracked stones, by men carrying heavy packs of sand on their backs. Few survived this treatment for more than a matter of days. Visitors (including the industrialists who used its forced labour) were offered tours, the SS were trained there and, in 1938, the “Inspection of the Concentration Camps”, the central administrative office for all concentration camps in the territories controlled by Germany, was moved here.

Due to its proximity to Berlin, Sachsenhausen was a key

 Memorial to the dead

forced labour camp. As well as the details in the camp itself, prisoners made up the workforce for the massive Klinkerwerk brickworks on the nearby lock, as well as the munitions factories operated by AEG and Siemens. By 1942, more than 100 satellite details and satellite camps worked out of Sachsenhausen. Tens of thousands of internees died from this forced labour, or from hunger, disease, and the medical experiments which were a feature of the site. In addition many were deliberately murdered, either in a specifically-built  “neck shot unit” (the fate of 13,000 Soviet POWs in 1941) and, from 1943, in a purpose built gas chamber. When asked at his trial why he introduced the mass extermination facility, Commandant Anton Kaindl responded "because it was a more efficient and more humane way to exterminate prisoners." On a busy day with school parties everywhere on site I have never been anywhere so silent as the remains of that chamber.

In 1945, with the war nearing its end, Sachsenhausen,

 Prisoners, Sachsenhausen

along with the rest of the camps, was cleared. In February an SS special unit headed by Otto Moll murdered 3,000 internees who were considered dangerous (which could mean because they had military training) or were declared unfit and another 13,000 were taken to be killed at Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen. On the 21 April more than 30,000 remaining internees were marched off on Death Marches towards the north-west, the intention, according to Kaindl's trial transcripts, being "to drive them onto barges out to sea and let them sink." The number who died remains unknown. On 22 April 1945, units of the Soviet and Polish armies liberated the 3,000 prisoners left behind due to sickness. 300 of the camp’s former inmates did not survive their liberation and died, and are buried, there.

 Soviet barracks for German prisoners

This, however, was not the end of Sachsenhausen's story. From August 1945, Sachsenhausen became Special Camp No 7: an internment camp for German officers and political prisoners held by the Soviet Union. By 1948, the site, by now renamed Special Camp No.1, was the largest of three special camps in the Soviet Occupation Zone which together held over 60,000 prisoners. Information at the site describes the conditions during this period as inhuman: "Hunger and cold prevailed in the Special Camp. The inadequate hygienic and sanitary conditions and the insufficient nourishment led to disease and epidemics." By 1950 when the camp closed, another 12,500 men were added to the role of Sachsenhausen's dead.

The first memorial at Sachsenhausen was inaugurated in 1961

 The red triangle memorial

by the pre-reunification East German government. In line with their thinking, the main emphasis then was on the role of political resistance. An obelisk was erected in the middle of the site which carries 18 red triangles, to commemorate the 18 nationalities of the political prisoners held there between 1936-45. Post reunification, along with other sites of this nature, the emphasis was on the victims who suffered and died. That two systems remembered Sachsenhausen in different ways caused problems for the site and how it was to be used and there are still visitors today who find the juxtaposition of Soviet and German memorials complicated. It is, I think, to the site's credit that the question of what it exists for is still under scrutiny. The historian Gunther Morsch, a previous director of the Sachsenhausen memorial and museum, has been very vocal about the need to re-examine how we approach these places, particularly in a political climate which is seeing a rise in populism and the right. "We want to keep honoring the victims. And most exhibitions are about their fate. But it has become clear that the emphasis must be shifted to the perpetrators' motives and the structures that enabled these crimes to be committed. More and more visitors were rightly asking, "How could such a thing happen?" and "Is it possible today?" Unfortunately, the second question had to be answered in the affirmative, because "National Socialism actually showed in its most radical form what people are capable of – even today." 

Sachsenhausen does not shy away from exploring the systematic extermination policy of the Nazis and its impact on individuals. The site is full of personal testimony which makes the numbers real and an art exhibition by former inmates which is both heart-breaking and hopeful. It is a brave place to visit - both for what it is trying to tell and what it demands from its visitors. If you go, don't take a tour - they'll whisk you through and serve you a potted version. Get the train from Berlin and walk from the station, it's horribly close. I spent a day there, too much in some ways, not enough in others. I wish I could go back and drag everyone who doesn't get the need for humanity and a united Europe with me. I defy even the toughest nut not to crack.

Walking the Krakow Ghetto by Catherine Hokin

Some places, for example Bruges, immerse the visitor in history as if you were walking through a film set. Others, as I discovered in the area which once housed the Krakow ghetto, take you down ordinary streets and trip you up with the weight of what they once held.

 Entrance to the Krakow Ghetto 1941

The ghetto in Krakow was one of 5 major metropolitan Jewish ghettos created by the Nazis during the occupation of Poland in World War Two. It was liquidated between June 1942 and March 1943 with most of the inhabitants being sent to the nearby forced labour camp at Plaszow, or the extermination camps at Belzec and Auschwitz. It was set up in the suburb of Podgorze rather than the traditional (and still very vibrant) Jewish district of Kazimierz because its architect Hans Frank (Hitler's personal lawyer) felt Kazimierz was more significant to Krakow's history. That Kazimierz is far more central to the city and thus harder to hide away must have played a significant part in that decision. The Krakow ghetto was a closed ghetto: it was physically cut off from the surrounding area and access was restricted; the suburb of Podgorze is across the river from the main city and can only be reached by bridge or boat.When first formed, 15000 Jews were crammed into an area meant for 3000 people; the size of the ghetto was reduced once deportations began.

 Ghetto Memorial Krakow

Like the majority of people with an interest in  history, we usually research our trips before we go. The Krakow trip, however, was a last minute short break and, beyond the salt mines (which I can't recommend highly enough), the Schindler Factory and Auschwitz, we hadn't looked at much in advance. Consequently we stumbled into the ghetto en route to the Factory without realising where we were. It was an eerie experience. The square we came into was quiet and empty, which is not the norm for Krakow squares. It was only when we stopped and looked closer that we realised we were looking at rows of deliberately empty, some small and some over-large, identical chairs. It's not easy to find, but there is a plaque on the kiosk at the square's edge - this is Heroes Square, the central point of the ghetto, and the 33 large chairs and 37 small ones made from iron and bronze are a memorial to its Jewish victims. It's a very poignant place and hit us all hard with its simplicity. The plaque contained a map and little else (there is no background explanation to the memorial) but it did direct us to the far corner and one of the best museums I think I've ever visited.

 The Under the Eagle Pharmacy

The Apteka Pod Orlem, or Under the Eagle Pharmacy, was run by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Roman Catholic Polish pharmacist and was the only pharmacy which continued to operate during the period of the ghetto. Pankiewicz chose to decline the Nazi (or Hitlerist as they are often referred to in Krakow) offer to relocate his premises and continued to supply medications throughout the ghetto's operation. More than this (which was brave enough), he and his staff helped smuggle food and information into the ghetto and helped hide many of those facing deportation. Pankiewicz's memoir (which is on sale in the tiny ticket office three doors down) talks about supplying hair dyes for changing identity and tranquilizers to keep children quiet during Gestapo raids. Because of his work, he was given the title of Righteous Among the Nations in 1983. The pharmacy has been completely refurbished and makes use of videos and testimony to tell its often heartbreaking stories. As many people will be aware, in February of this year the Polish government passed a law that outlaws blaming Poland for any crimes committed during the Holocaust. This museum puts the blame squarely where it should go but makes no attempt to wipe away the locals who participated - their, named, stories are presented along with those of the victims and survivors. It is an intelligent, even-handed account of a terrible period and deserves visiting.

 Ghetto Wall Krakow

We now had our bearings so decided to make the half-hour walk to the Plaszow concentration camp. It's a roadside, not very scenic walk and there is a tram that takes you there (we used it on the way back) as well as the innumerable little tourist road trains but walk, for two reasons. Firstly, if you don't you will miss the unbearably moving stretch of the old ghetto wall, now sitting very incongruously beside a children's playground at the back of a primary school. Again the plaque is tiny and it isn't marked on any map we had. This section is one of only two that survive and stretches up into the old quarries and the cemetery. The original encircling walls were 3m high and there were only 4 gates in. One of the most disturbing features is its shape: the wall is deliberately built in the shape of the tombstones that you will find in the sixteenth century Jewish graveyard in Kazimierz. The Jewish men forced to build it can have been left with no illusions.

 Plaszow 1941

The second reason for walking the route is to experience how (like Sachsenhausen in Berlin) short the distance is between slave camp and city. In another very deliberate gesture, Plaszow was built on the site of two Jewish cemetaries which were destroyed for the purpose - the shattered tombstones were used to cobble the roads. The camp was a forced-labour camp providing labour for the quarries and a number of armaments factories. By its height in 1944 it is estimated the camp held 25000 prisoners on the 200 acre site. Conditions were abysmal with deaths from typhus and starvation rampant. There is no museum at Plaszow and no guides. Since November of last year large information boards have been put in place describing the site and what happened there and these provide a kind of route through. The site is very beautiful - it is a wildflower filled nature-reserve - and that alone makes the whole experience of walking its paths a hard one. If you follow the numbered boards, you end at the Hujowa Gorka - this roughly translates as Dick Hill and is a play on the name of Unterscharfuhrer Albert Hujar, the man who turned this beautiful hill into a killing field. Some 8-10,000 prisoners were marched to a trench in this hillside, stripped and shot. In 1944, all the bodies were exhumed and burnt on a giant bonfire to hide the evidence. Witnesses have testified to seeing 17 lorry loads of human ash.

 The Memorial of Torn Out Hearts

The hill is dominated by a memorial which finally broke us all - me, the Jewish American OH and the 23 year old Berlin-living son. We'd all taken time out here and there, and there is something about Holocaust places that requires everyone to move in their own space, but this brought us all to tears and silence. This is the Memorial of Torn Out Hearts - you won't see the name (or any explanation) at the site but you'll have named it something similar already. This massive stone was designed by Witold Cęckiewicz and unveiled in 1964. It depicts five figures (representing the five countries of Płaszów's victims) with their heads bent under the weight of the massive stone block from which they're carved and a horizontal crack across their chests, symbolising their abruptly ended lives. Each face is different, each hand is different. I've never seen anything as moving. It dominates the skyline and, what you can't see from my photograph, is that the sky shows through the crack so the rip feels almost living. There are discussions currently being held about a permanent museum being built here, it doesn't need it - the monument and the boards and the beauty of the place tell all the stories that you need.

We didn't get to the Schindler Factory - the website to be honest is crackers, we couldn't book in advance and the daily allocation was done before we got there. It didn't matter, we had discovered our own history which then led us into Kazimierz and its wonderful synagogues. It was a short stay and we are leaving Auschwitz for another trip: our walk through the ghetto reminded us that these sites, which are so woven into the places that still bear their scars, take recovery and reflection time. The quietly demonstrative Krakow Ghetto made us remember and remember vividly; it did its job.

Alternative history: It’s not just about Nazis by Alison Morton

Adaptations of The Man in the High Castle (original story by Philip K Dick, 1962) and SS-GB (Len Deighton, 1978) have been the most prominent ‘what if’s in front of the viewing public’s eyes recently. These stories have fascinated us as they depict the most horrific thing that could have happened to Western Europe and America in modern history. Robert Harris’s Fatherland (1992) gave Nazi alternative history fiction a good nudge and then along came C J Sansom’s Dominion in 2012. Perhaps the first two are a projection of fears about the Cold War, the second two a re-examination after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

But as the Tudors are not the only historical period, so the Nazis are not the only alternative history subject. Our cousins in the US enjoy speculating about the outcomes of the War of Independence or the American Civil War, while any respectable French bookshop inevitably has a section on the ‘what if’ of Napoléon winning at Waterloo.

Alexander the Great, Naples Museum (author photo)

Alternative history is nothing new

Roman historian Livy speculated on the idea that the Romans would have eventually beaten Alexander the Great if he’d lived longer and turned west to attack them (Book IX, sections 17-19 Ab urbe condita libri (The History of Rome, Titus Livius). In 1490, Joanot Martorell  wrote Tirant lo Blanch about a knight who manages to fight off the invading Ottoman armies of Mehmet II and saves Constantinople from Islamic conquest. This was written when the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 was still a traumatic memory for Christian Europe.

What is alternative history fiction?

Althist is a speculative genre with two parents: history and science fiction. Like any genre there are conventions:
– the event that turned history from the path we know – the point of divergence (POD) – must be in the past.
– the new timeline follows a different path forever – there is no going back.
– stories should show the ramifications of the divergence and how the new reality functions.

The world of the alternative timeline can partially resemble our own or be very different. Sometimes documented historical characters appear with or without changed roles and views; sometimes the story centres on entirely fictional characters or a mixture of both. Stories such as Ken Follett’s The Key to Rebecca or Alexandre Dumas’s The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, although ‘what if’ in nature don’t result in a change of the course of history as we know it.  Noami Novik’s excellent Temeraire series where dragons fight in a Napoleonic era is, of course, historical fantasy. Time travel machines, heroines falling through temporal portals, time travellers dropping in to sort out history then popping back out, or goddesses putting everything back as it was are not included. Once the historical timeline diverges, that’s it.

In alternative history, the jumping-off point is the point of divergence from the standard timeline, so wise writers research that period to death; religion, customs, dress, food, agriculture, legal background, defence forces, cultural attitudes, everyday life of all classes and groups. Landscapes and climate should resemble the ones in the region where the imagined country lies. And no serious alternative history writer can neglect their imagined country’s social, economic and political development. Every living person is a product of their local conditions; their experience of living in a place, and struggle to make sense of it, is expressed through culture and behaviour.

Writers need to imbue their characters with a sense of living in the present, in the now. This is their current existence, for them it’s not some story in a book(!). Character-based stories are popular; readers are intrigued by what happens to individual people living in different environments as well as taking part in major historical events. Sometimes it’s more interesting to follow the person’s story than the big event itself.

Whether a historical story is fictitious or a near biographical novel, readers will engage with it and follow as long as the writer keeps their trust. If the story world doesn’t feel plausible and consistent, the reader’s trust will break. However fantastic that imagined world, it also needs to have reached the setting for the current story in a credible way, i.e. have good backstory and history of its own. But no amount of plausibility, research or attention to ‘the rules’, or sense of fun, will disguise poor writing, shallow characterisation and losing the plot.

But how plausible is alternative history?
Alternative history varies in ‘hardness’ with readers and fans grading it by how plausible the 'alternation' is when measured against historical reality. At the ‘hard’ end are well-researched pieces that take into account historical sources and trends and try to relate events that flow from the point of divergence by using historical logic. Having a grasp of how history works despite, or perhaps because of, the butterfly effect is essential. At the ‘soft’ end are works of pure fantasy and ‘Rule of Cool’, generally a result of alien space bats (more classically, the dei ex machina).

I’m very grateful to TV Tropes for dissecting and qualifying the main types so clearly on the sliding scale of alternate history plausibility, and I’ll use their categories to explain in more detail.

Type I – Hard Alternate History: These are works that stick to strict, sometimes scientific, standards in their plausibility. Research is often detailed and intensive. Most historical counter-factuals fall into this category.
Type II – Hard/Soft Alternate History: Often well researched with historical logic and methodology, but allows room for adventurous outcomes or Rule of Drama/Cool/Comedy
Type III – Soft Alternate History: Here, setting up a world that fits the writer’s creative objectives is more important than the plausibility of the setting’s alternate history. Research is often minimal to moderate and plausibility will take a back seat to Rule of Drama/Cool/Comedy.
Type IV – Utterly Implausible Alternate History: These are works that are so ‘soft’ that they melt and so implausible as to be effectively impossible. Often, the author puts their own ideology to the fore at the expense of research, historic details or sensible logistics. Readers with even a passing familiarity with history can’t take it seriously. The original term 'alien space bats' was coined to refer to this level of implausibility.
Type X – Fantastical Alternate History: In contrast with Type IV, these works are deliberately designed as pure fantasy, typically following the Rule of Cool. Mad ideas prevail such as Nazis on the moon in the 2012 film Iron Sky.

Perception is, of course, subjective and depends upon the individual reader’s personal interpretations or on whether they are looking for serious historically logical development, a lighthearted, if not positively wacky, adventure story or something in-between. I stand at the historical end of the scale because I’m a historian as well as a thriller writer.

As with all historical fiction, characters must act, think and feel like real people. The most credible ones live naturally within their world, i.e. consistently reflecting their unique environment and the prevailing social attitudes. Of course, it makes a stronger story if the permissions and constraints of their world conflict with their personal wishes and aims. But that’s what happens in all good fiction!

Some alternative history themes and stories

England has remained Catholic – Pavane, Keith Roberts or The Alteration, Kingsley Amis
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn have a son and Elizabeth I and Philip II of Spain have a daughter – The Boleyn Trilogy/Tudor Legacy Series, Laura Anderson
Alaska rather than Israel becomes the Jewish homeland – The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
Roosevelt loses the 1940 election and right-wing Charles Lindbergh becomes US president – The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from St. Helena and winds up in the United States in 1821 – Napoleon in America, Shannon Selin
Is John F. Kennedy killed by a bomb in 1963? Or does he chose not to run in 1964 after an escalated Cuban Missile Crisis led to the nuclear obliteration of Miami and Kiev? – My Real Children, Jo Walton
A secret fifth daughter of the Romanov family continues the Russian royal lineage –The Secret Daughter of the Tsar and The Tsarina’s Legacy, Jennifer Laam
An England in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution, but supporters of the House of Hanover continually agitate against the monarchy – Children’s favourite The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
A dystopian anti-female religious theocracy – The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Prolific writers of althist especially from the US viewpoint include Harry Turtledove, Eric Flint and S.M. Stirling.
The Roman Empire has survived into the present day – Romanitas, Sophia McDougall

******

Alison Morton's latest alternate history thriller, RETALIO, came out in April 2017.
www.alison-morton.com  @alison_morton

The Lying Press

by Marie-Louise Jensen

The German phrase Lügenpresse has come into use again in the last few years with the renewed rise of the far right across the world. This is a term that can be easily searched for and found online, but I thought it was worth bringing up here to highlight how insidious and loaded a term it really is.

The term first surfaced in Germany in the 19th Century and first became widely used around1848, by Catholics as a response to an increasingly liberal and hostile press. It was used again to describe the enemy propoganda in WW1. And, most infamously, it was an anti-democracy cry used by the Nazis during their rise to power in the 1930s.
It fitted with the Nazi conspiracy theory that the Jews secretly ran the country and press and were lying to the German people for their own ends. The effects of this propoganda and stirring up of hatred are too well known to be repeated here - millions died horribly as a result.
Naturally, once Hilter and his party had seized power, they no longer used this term. Ironic, given that the Nazis' entire news and education network was one big barage of propoganda and lies.

By Opposition24.de [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

It is disturbing to see the term on the rise again. With the loss of faith in the establishment in the Western world - some would say as a consequence of the rise in inequality and the resentment that brings - the press has also come under attack. In Germany, the term Lügenpresse has come into use again in connection with the rise of Pegida, the anti-islamic movement in Germany. Pegida has mainly gained traction in the former East Germany, where there has been lower immigration and historically less positive engagement with coming to terms with Germany's fascist past than in the West. Althought Pegida claims to be a peaceful movement, there is little doubt the agenda is far right, and it is also a fact that journalist covering the marches have had to take security with them after a number of their colleagues were physically attacked.
Germany declared the term taboo in 2015. In a country still troubled by its past, the rise in a Nazi slogan was disturbing.
The word's connection to its historical past becomes all the clearer when it is observed in the rise of Trump in the USA. In the final weeks of the campaign, the term Lügenpresse was shouted at rallies and meetings by the alt-right. It was even accompanied in places by the Nazi salute and shouts of 'Hail Trump'. The fact that these groups can knowingly adopt a Nazi term that has inherent anti-semitic assosciations is deeply troubling. Considering the realaxed relationship the American alt-right and indeed to a lesser extent parts of the British right-wing press have with truthful reporting, it is pretty steep that they level this accusation. But whatever your political views, it's generally accepted that a free press is an essential ingredient for a democracy.
Words have power. It is so important to know their history so we can combat them.

Book Review: Girl with a White Dog

By Anne Booth

(Post by Marie-Louise Jensen)

Jessie is excited when her gran gets a white Alsatian puppy, but with Snowy's arrival a mystery starts to unfold. As Jessie learns about Nazi Germany at school, past and present begin to slot together and she uncovers something long-buried, troubling and somehow linked to another girl and another white dog…
Family troubles, dementia, a longed-for pet and a mysterious past: I wasn't far into this book before I began to realise there were many layers in the narrative and that the way the tale was unfolding was unusual but exciting. The writing is gentle, warm and caring.

When Jessie's grandmother begins to have episodes of forgetfulness and fear and to say things that make no sense to her family, Jessie becomes afraid for her. Strangely, the things she is saying begin to link uncomfortably with Jessie's aunt, who blames immigrants for all the troubles in the area, with the brick that is thrown through Mr Gupta's village-shop window and with an attack on the young man with Down's syndrome. Her grandmother's condition also seems to coincide with her unexpected acquisition of a white puppy for whose safety she is irrationally afraid.

Jessie grows curious about her grandmother's past, which no one in her family knows anything about. This becomes especially important when Ben's grandmother visits the school to talk about Nazi Germany as part of a history project. Eventually she decides to look through her box of photos and letters which Snowy has found and chewed.

All the threads in the story are linked and connect past and present. The tale is a lesson in remembering the past and making sure it doesn't repeat itself horribly in the present. My favourite line, without doubt, and the main message I myself will take from the book is in the very last section: "a story [...] is being told that we believe in [ ... ] But we have not checked who is telling it."

Do we always think about who is telling us something and what their agenda might be? If we don't, we should. Otherwise we are easily manipulated.

Jessie tells us this is a fairy tale, and like all fairy tales it begins by being sad. And you have to make up your own mind about whether the ending is happy or sad. It may be different things to different readers.

It’s difficult to pinpoint an appropriate reading age for this book. It seems to be set in secondary rather than primary school, as the subjects are divided and taught by different teachers. The voice is young and the writing highly accessible. The subject is upsetting in places but always gently told and never graphic. My feeling reading it was that a child would understand the story on different levels depending on their age and would draw an age-appropriate message from it. There is plenty here for an adult reader too, especially those readers who aren't all that familiar with the Third Reich - and anyone who enjoys a sensitively-told tale, beautifully written.

With thanks to Catnip Books for a review copy.