As the situation deteriorates in 1930s Germany, Abraham emigrates to Israel to start a new life, but when financial difficulties arise he enlists in the British Royal Pioneer Corps, the only British unit to admit “enemy aliens”. Leaving his wife Genia and small son to survive as best they can, Abraham goes off to war and his experiences there are as brutal as might be expected. Meanwhile Genia faces her own challenges left alone in a new country. Will Abraham survive and return? The novel is based on a true story, and certainly from an historical perspective it has much to offer. I didn’t know that Israelis served in the British army, nor that a German Jew could have done so. But the book fails as a novel, as it is merely a narrative account without any sense of interiority, no psychological insight into the protagonists, or any character development that isn’t simply told to us rather than shown. Therefore I wasn’t engaged by the characters and they never came alive for me. Worth reading for the history, however.