The author tells two stories in parallel: that of his own journey and a first-rate account of what happened eighty years before

A book that amuses yet haunts, brisk at one moment, melancholy the next... an effortless blend of past and present

Succeeds admirably in both parts: the travelogue weaves in and out, giving welcome relief from the sweat and fear, the sleeplessness, the fearful wounds and the killing... Masterly

Based on fact and meticulously researched, it is a moving novel. Robert Hicks is a superb storyteller.

'A sleeping giant'

This remarkable debut novel has an unflinching eye for detail and is at once a meditation on the futility of war and a paen to the power of he human spirit.

Nicholas Stargardt's compelling new book tells exactly what was happening to the children of Europe who had been living under the Nazi regime...Stargardt's is, indeed, a terrible story: it is an account of the endless tramp of the innocents across Europe, a saga of cruelty, starvation, separation, loss and abject misery with lives without number ending in death

Children are history's forgotten people; amidst the sound and fury of battle, as commanders decide the fate of empires, they are never seen. Yet as Nicholas Stargardt reveals in his heart-rending account of children's lives under the Nazis, to ignore them is to leave history half-written. This is an excellent book and it tells a terrible story... As Stargardt so eloquently reminds us, the tragedy is that children were part of the equation and suffered accordingly

'Nicholas Stargardt evokes the individual voices of children under Nazi rule. In re-creating their wartime experiences, he has produced a challenging new historical interpretation of the Second World War