Summary

The novel starts from Josef’s perspective in Berlin, Germany 1938. Josef Landau wakes up feeling as if someone has broken into his apartment, and hearing loud bangs. His family has just relocated into a smaller apartment, due to Nazi laws. Shadowy hands break into the room he shares with his sister Ruthie. Josef, “kicked and flailed in a panic, but one of the shadows caught his ankle and dragged him face-first across the bed” (2).The shadows drag them into the living room, where they see their parents lying on the floor, and seven strangers. One of them explains that since their father had continued to practice law, and as he was Jewish this was forbidden, they were taking him into “protective custody” (3). In the next few days, they learned their family was not alone, and part of the “Kristallnacht” or “Night of Broken...