In 1944, while Fritz Tubach, the son of a German Nazi army officer, was preparing to join the Hitler Youth movement, Hungarian-born Bernie Rosner and his family were being loaded onto a train bound for Auschwitz. With childhood experiences so diametrically opposed, it seems nothing short of a divine act of goodwill that many years later these two men would meet and become close friends.

Told in a counterpoint memoir style, the stories these two men offer of their youths, set against a backdrop of unmitigated evil, are utterly divergent. Yet, once in America and afforded a never-known personal freedom, their paths toward personal rebirth become surprisingly intertwined and profoundly beautiful.

   --- Reviewed by Lazarus Penultimate

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