Boxcars (Paperback)

In May, 1944, a Jewish teenager's career as a promising concert violinist has been derailed, and he is on the run from the Nazis. With the Gestapo at his heels, he discovers a hidden cave in western France which he establishes as his hideout. There, amidst ancient cave drawings containing possible hidden meanings, and an underground river fed by soothing hot springs, he finds refuge but shallow peace until he joins the French Resistance. At age 17, he is called upon to take part in daring missions against the Germans who are racing to fortify the Atlantic Coast in anticipation of D-Day. At the same time, a Romani teenage prisoner at Auschwitz, who the famously sadistic Dr. Mengele refers to as "that Gypsy waif," escapes from a Nazi medical experiment and attempts to make her way back to France. The two teens are destined to meet under such circumstances that their lives become desperately entangled as they struggle to survive the Holocaust. These young adults of radically different backgrounds are cast together during war to experience their own distinct coming-of-age epiphany as they painfully explore their increasingly complicated and awkward relationship brewing beneath the canopy of dissonant cultures and beliefs.