First published 2017
Otto Pohl wakes to find SS men driving hundreds of Jews into an abandoned brick factory in occupied Ukraine. The German engineer came here to oversee road construction, not to witness the machinery of genocide grinding into motion. Inside the factory, Ephraim searches desperately for his two missing sons as fellow prisoners ask fearful questions about their destination and return. He knows his older boy well enough to suspect the teenager might be hiding rather than reporting to the Germans, with his younger brother likely following close behind. Meanwhile, Yasia spots two boys moving through empty streets after coming to town to sell her family's produce. The farmer's daughter makes a split-second choice to shelter them. As Otto grapples with what he has seen, Ephraim confronts every parent's worst nightmare, and Yasia risks everything for strangers, their fates become inseparably linked. Seiffert weaves their stories into an examination of moral choice under impossible circumstances, where survival and duty pull in opposite directions and fear threatens to paralyze the capacity for courage.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, war
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Ukraine
Period: Occupied
256 pages · Hardcover · Pantheon
Content warnings: death, violence