SOLOMON PEREL LATE JUNE 1941 NEAR MINSK, BELARUS Your name is Solomon Perel. You’re a short, skinny, sixteen-year-old Jew, and you’ve just been captured by the Nazis. It’s all you can do not to piss yourself. They’ve nabbed you and a bunch of other refugees, just a few days into Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Now they’ve lined you all up in a field as they decide what to do with each of you. Most of you are Jewish—that’s why you were on the run in the first place—so the Nazis don’t have to think too hard about it. They take groups of refugees ahead of you off into the woods. From the forest come the sounds of shovels and machine guns, shovels and machine guns. Your wait stretches into hours. That’s plenty of time to consider the papers in your pocket, the ones identifying you not only as a Jew but also as a Communist—a Nazi target twice over. If you run, you’ll be killed for sure. And so, hoping no one will notice amid the smoke and bombs and hum of German planes, you gouge a hole in the earth with the heel of your shoe.
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