Four days after Germany’s surrender in May 1945, a young British officer took a jeep and headed east into Germany. But this was no ordinary soldier. Manfred Gans was searching for his family. As a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany, Gans had fled to England. As soon as he could, he signed up to fight, serving in the legendary British ‘Three Troop’, an elite unit made up of German-speaking refugees, and joining in the D-Day Normandy landings. Working undercover, he obtained vital intelligence, helped liberate occupied France and the Netherlands, and saved countless lives on both sides of the front. All the while, he dreamed of being reunited with his family, still trapped behind enemy lines, and with his childhood sweetheart, Anita. As the war ended, chaos reigned in Germany: defeated Wehrmacht soldiers faced columns of American and British soldiers, concentration camp survivors crossed paths with SS guards, and Soviet military roadblocks controlled the route to the east. Manfred overcame all of these, finally reaching the place where his parents had last been seen: Theresienstadt. Translated by Rachel Stanyon
