Beyond the Wire

The bestselling author of Irena's War blends fact and fiction in a gripping novel based on one of the most extraordinary true stories of World War II--an uprising behind the walls of Auschwitz concentration camp.October 1944: In the long, narrow undressing rooms in Auschwitz-Birkenau, prisoner Jakub Bak toils under the scrutiny of SS guards. Like other members of the Sonderkommando, Jakub was selected on arrival for an unthinkable job: sorting through the clothes of the dead and moving their bodies from the gas chambers to the crematoriums. In this hell within a hell, Jakub clings to the promise he made to his murdered father--to live, at any cost--and to the moments he is able to spend in the company of Anna, imprisoned in the women's camp. Every morning, Anna marches miles to the union munitions factory where she works alongside other prisoners. Even Jakub doesn't know that she and a few other women have been taking the ultimate risk, smuggling trace amounts of gunpowder back in the