Book Specs
Binding
Trade Paper
Publisher
Granta Books
Published on
Sep 13, 2007
Edition
1st Edition
Dimensions
5.08x1.02x7.80 Inches
Weight
0.73 Pounds
About the Book
Roman Halter is an optimistic and boisterous schoolboy in 1939 when he and his family gather behind net curtains to watch the Volksdeutsch neighbours of their small town in western Poland greeting the arrival of Hitler's armies with kisses and swastika flags. Within days, the family home has been seized, and twelve-year-old Roman becomes a slave of the local SS chief and, returning from an errand, silently witnesses his Jewish classmates being bayoneted to death by soldiers at the edge of town. And then there begins the remarkable six-year journey through some of the darkest caverns of Nazi Europe, and the loss of every other member of his family and the 800-strong community of his boyhood. Roman tells his story with a simplicity and grace that allow his suffering and survival to speak for themselves.