"I saw two more soldiers in the river before I turned my back. These bodies, in the middle of the river, were being thrown from rock to rock. The bodies all had one thing in common; they were all missing hats and boots. Thinking of my stepfather, whom I had so often seen in his officer's uniform, and of my baby brother, Sandor, who would grow up to wear one, I started running again and did not stop until I reached Babi's warm kitchen." (Chapter 1, page 6)

"Somewhere in my heart I had known that my Christian friends were different from me; that I lived in their world, not they in mine; that laws came from their world, not mine; that school closed for Christmas and Easter, not Hanukkah and Passover. I had accepted these rules without thinking much about them, just as I accepted having to wash my...