AustLit

'Frau Rosenberg,

We enclose the ashes of your husband, Josef Rosenberg, who was shot while trying to escape from protective custody at Dachau. He was cremated in line with official government policy. There is an outstanding charge for transport which will be sent to you separately.

Ernst Hasler,

Commandant,

Dachau K.Z.

'Netanel Rosenberg could feel the net closing in. After his father dies in a Nazi concentration camp he tries everything to get himself and his mother out of Germany - even if it means leaving behind the woman he loves.

'Meanwhile in Palestine, other loyalties are being tested; while the Arabs in British-controlled Palestine openly support Hitler, Zayyad Hass’an, in tiny Rab’allah, wonders whether the muftis in the city will lead them to freedom - or just tyranny of a different kind.

'But what does it mean to be an Arab in such a fast changing world? His son Rishou learns he cannot be a true Muslim - and be with the woman he loves. A man is whatn he is born to, and Sarah Landauer will always be forbidden to him.

'For the Hass’ans in Rab’allah, for the Rosenbergs in Bavaria, there are no easy solutions.

'When Netanel Rosenberg is sent to Auschwitz, he loses everything but hope. Little by little he forgets the good Jew he once was in order to survive. He lets go of everything but the dream of one day regaining his freedom and finding a place where a Jew might never be afraid again.

'Two men, two women; two vastly different worlds. From the freezing plains of Poland to the sun baked hills of Palestine, from a world in the grip of war, all that matters is the desperate will to survive.

'This is the second book in the Jerusalem series, tracing the roots of the Jewish-Arab conflict in the Middle East, from the holocaust in Nazi Germany to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. It is the story behind the scenes that you see every night on the evening news. ' (Publication summary)