Auslander

Synopsis

When Peter's parents are killed, he is sent to an orphanage in Warsaw, Poland. But Peter is Volksdeutscher—of German blood. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looks just like the boy on the Hitler Youth poster. The Nazis decide he is racially valuable. Indeed, a prominent German family is pleased to adopt such a fine Aryan specimen into their household. But despite his new family, Peter feels like a foreigner—an ausländer—and he is forming his own ideas about what he sees and what he's told. He doesn't want to be a Nazi. So he takes a risk—the most dangerous one he could possibly choose in 1942 Berlin. . . .

Review

Paul Dowswell weaves meticulous research into a thrilling narrative, exposing a different angle of the horrors of Nazi Germany.