"When U.S. troops occupy Germany, friends Jakob and Emmanuelle are saved from the terrible fate of so many in the camps. With the help of sponsors, they make their way to New York. In order not to be separated, they allow their friendship to blossom into love and marriage, and start a new life on the Lower East Side, working at grueling, poorly paid jobs. Decades later, through talent, faith, fortune, and relentless hard work, Jakob has achieved success...

"In 1943, the twenty-year-old Polish poet and journalist Tadeusz Borowski was arrested and deported to Auschwitz as a political prisoner. What he experienced in the camp left him convinced that no one who survived Auschwitz was innocent. All were complicit; the camp regime depended on this. Borowski's tales present the horrors of the camp as reflections of basic human nature and impulse, stripped of the artificial boundaries of culture and custom....

January 1945, the war is not yet over : the Soviets begin the deportation of the German minority from the labor camps in Ukraine. This is the story of seventeen year old Leo Auberge, who went to the camp with the naive unawareness of the boy eager to escape provincial life. The last five years however he experienced daily hunger and cold, extreme fatigue and death.

"As World War II approaches, two families run for their lives--and for the future of all they hold dear. 1930: As raids and violent arrests sweep through their Crimean village, two families are forced to make desparate choices in order to keep themselvs--and their hope--alive. The Pfeiffers get out as quickly as they can, braving a last-minute escape in the dead of night. Their friends the Scholzes are less lucky. Captured and transported to labour...

"When battle-hardened Private Bernie Russell witnesses a fellow soldier shoot a young German boy with his hands up, he's shaken to his very core. Then, as that same boy is dying, he presses a packet of photographs and letters into Bernie's hand and utters three words in English. "It must end." After having the letters translated, he discovers they were written by the soldier's twin sister, and the photographs within the packet reveal evidence of Hitler's...