SOURCE: Malcolm, Janet. “A Matter of Life and Death.” New York Review of Books 38, no. 11 (13 June 1991): 16-17.

In the following review, Malcolm examines the nature of survival in Wartime Lies, pondering the effects on the young protagonist produced by random and indifferent deaths.

Early in this chilling novel [Wartime Lies] about a Jewish boy named Maciek and his aunt Tania, who survive the Nazi years in Poland by acquiring false Aryan papers, the question of the child's circumcised penis is raised. As the narrator dryly points out, Jewish women could represent themselves as Aryans easily enough, but

with men, there was no cheating, no place for Jewish ruses. Very early in the process would come the simple, logical invitation: If Pan is not a kike, a zidlak, would he please let down his trousers? A thousand excuses if we are wrong.

“With his old man's flabby skin” the...