Book Club Discussion Guide WHAT THEY DIDN'T BURN

 WHAT THEY DIDN'T BURN is a dramatic, investigative memoir of a reporter's search, a son's revelation, and a Nazi paper trail that proved his father's unlikely stories of survival.

On a broader level, it tells the remarkable story of how 130,000 men, women, and children in a small, obscure corner of occupied Europe serendipitously escaped the worst of the Holocaust in the opening years of World War II.

Much of this true story is set in a notorious Auschwitz slave camp where, amid hard labor and easy death, Jewish Kapos played cards with SS killers, prisoners engaged in  a lively black market, and the Jewish head of the camp bribed and cajoled Nazi officials to save lives, very much an unsung Oscar Schindler.

This is also the poignant story of how traumatized refugees turned hopeful immigrants rebuilt their lives and families in America, all the while struggling to overcome the trauma that's affected their children to this day.

What They DIdn't Burn is an ideal selection for your nonfiction book club or discussion group, be it focused on nonfiction narrative, memoir, World War II history, or investigative journalism.