A Question of Belonging

Ernst was a secular Jew, a youth who considered himself a German, not a Jew. He and his family barely escaped the horror of Nazi Germany, came to the United States, where Ernst completed a college degree in two years and joined the U.S. Army. As an expert skier he wanted to be in the 10th Mountain Division, but was assigned instead to an intelligence unit in the 3rd Army. His life takes a nasty turn when he is captured by the German Army at the Battle of the Bulge. He and other American soldiers are taken back to Germany to a POW camp. There a Gestapo officer becomes suspicious that he may be a native German Jew and interrogates him for 11 hours. How Ernst escapes death and survives this interrogation is one of the most gripping stories ever. I highly recommend it.

A gripping and well written memoir by a Jewish man who barely escaped Nazi Germany, only to join the American Army and then be captured by the Germans and almost discovered and killed, this book is hard to put down. The author interweaves quotes from Goethe in an imaginative and evocative style. I recommend it highly.