Cracow

Cracow, also spelled "Krakow", is a city in Poland. Cracow is located near the concentration camp, Auschwitz. The novel begins in Cracow when Olin arrives there to attend a spiritual retreat at Auschwitz, and spends some time in the city. It is in the Cracow ghetto during the war that Olin is born to a Jewish mother and is later spirited away to the United States.

Auschwitz I

Auschwitz I is the location of the main concentration camp and its associated buildings near Cracow, Poland. It is where most of the German SS officers were housed and where the first prisoners of the camp were brought and exterminated. It is also where the commandant of Auschwitz was executed after the war. Auschwitz I is where most of the retreat occurs that Olin attends. It is in Auschwitz I that the members of the retreat both commune with each...