Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck made an unlikely and disturbing team to many who heard them speak together about their experiences during World War II. A German Jew, Helen Waterford was a survivor of Auschwitz and Kratzau concentration camps. Also German, Alfons Heck had spent most of his childhood as a follower of Adolf Hitler, a member of the fanatical Hitler Youth. In this taut, riveting narrative that echoes the format of the many public speaking engagements Helen and Alfons made together in the 1980s, alternating chapters move back and forth between Alfons' and Helens' lives in the years between 1933 and 1946, weaving material from their own autobiographies with author Eleanor Ayer's research on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The juxtaposition is disturbing and the result is powerful, as is Helen's and Alfons' testimony to the importance of speaking the truth. (Ages 12-15)

She was a young German Jew. He was an ardent member of the Hitler Youth. This is the story of their parallel journey through World War II.

Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck were born just a few miles from each other in the German Rhineland. But their lives took radically different courses: Helen’s to the Auschwitz concentration camp; Alfons to a high rank in the Hitler Youth.

While Helen was hiding in Amsterdam, Alfons was a fanatic believer in Hitler’s “master race.” While she was crammed in a cattle car bound for the death camp Auschwitz, he was a teenage commander of frontline troops, ready to fight and die for the glory of Hitler and the Fatherland. This book tells both of their stories, side-by-side, in an overwhelming account of the nightmare that was World War II. The riveting stories of these two remarkable people must stand as a powerful lesson to us all.