It was horrible news, devastating news. The pace of the executions was slacking off. It didn't mean the Germans were changing their minds. It didn't mean they were giving up their insane plot. It meant they were running out of Jews to kill.
-- narrator (chapter 1 paragraph 6)

Importance: This observation from within the Treblinka Nazi death camp in Poland in 1943 takes the reader to the earliest days of Ivan the Terrible, a sadistic guard and director of the Jewish corpse disposal ovens. He is so called because no one knows his last name. He is brutish, cruel, and conniving. Part of his job is ensuring a steady flow of Jews from railroad cars, to the lethal gas chambers, to the crematory ovens.

Herr Janning, it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.
-- American Judge Haywood (chapter 6 paragraph 5)

Importance: The quote is attributed to the American Judge Dan Haywood, who conducted the...