David Clements Olin

David Clements Olin is the son of a Protestant man and a Jewish woman. Olin did not learn much about his mother until his grandmother lay dying. The old woman told him that his mother was likely a Jew and that she likely died in Auschwitz. However, she never told him if she knew for sure that his mother had died.

Olin becomes extremely interested with the writings of Jewish Holocaust survivors, especially Borowski, and so devotes his life to studying their work and that time. As an older man, Olin travels to Poland to find out what he can about his mother. Unable to get much information, what Olin does learn about his mother seems to support the idea that she died at Auschwitz.

While at Auschwitz, Olin falls in love with Sister Catherine, a Catholic novice nun who serves in the area. She, however...