Zoe Crafton

It is the only book that has helped me make sense of the atrocities of WW2. I am an avid historical fiction fan and have always had a hard time processing the effects of WW2. Mark Sullivan is able to take a true story, fill in the blanks, and help a modern reader who has heard the Jewish perspective of the Holocaust to understand the large mass of the common person who was effected by Hitler's rampage. We, the citizens of any nation, pay for the choices our leaders make. Hitler committed suicide in a bunker and Stalin died in his own bed, yet it was the people who paid for their crimes in POW camps, Gulags, and as victims of the secret police. This is a book that will leave you grateful you have never been made to choose impossible odds. It made me grateful for the freedom I do have even when life seems impossible.