Sands’ narratives are a testament to persistence in finding the evidence, digging through archives, and following up on every personal lead. That the Nazi crimes are beyond comprehension is an established fact. There are those who assert that any attempt to capture it in words – whether in non-fiction or in works of art – is destined to be woefully inadequate.. But Sands puts a unique human face to the German genocide, and in doing so, he paints a haunting picture of human depravity. He describes how the Franks would bring their children to the Warsaw Ghetto and laughingly use the heads of the Jewish children as they emerged from the sewage system to scrounge for food as target practice. He chronicles the insensitivity that Otto Wachter’s wife displays as her husband’s work enables her to purchase expensive clothes or vacation in mountain resorts is terrifying. And concurrently he powerfully portrays the intellectual conflict between Lauterpacht and Lemkin as they jockey for intellectual recognition for their ideas at Nuremberg.

However, the most interesting part of the two books is the sharp contrast between Niklas Frank and Horst Wachter. The story of sons living in the long and terrible shadows of their fathers, and attempting, each in his own way, to come to terms with those shadows, is sharply portrayed. Niklas rejects his father and recognizes the latter’s crimes while Horst appears purposely oblivious to what his father did—an oblivion which must take some effort to construct and maintain. He fails to acknowledge Otto’s murderous behavior and continues to believe that his father must have been decent and acting in good faith. He is a gracious host when Sands visits him but remains blind to who and what his father really was.

The concept of the hereditability of guilt is a well-established motif in literature and plays out in real life as well. The notion of the guilt of the German people after the Holocaust is a modern expression of this concept and a demonstration that it is an idea that has not faded away completely. The hostility between nations over battles fought centuries ago is another reflection of trans-generational culpability, or at least of trans-generational enmity. But the story of these two German sons and their relationships with the murderous legacies of their fathers makes this question of guilt real on a very personal level, with one son asking for forgiveness and the other in denial. Niklas’ behavior dovetails with the classic rabbinic view—that atonement must be made by the sons of the guilty parties--, while Horst’s is a complete repudiation of it. Sands reports, but offers no explanation for, the disparate behavior of the two sons. Superficially, he is a silent observer, but he sensitively makes it clear where his sympathies lie. He cannot be faulted for not being able to explain how the fathers and sons became who they were. The psychodynamic roots of accepting or denying responsibility, of condemning or defending someone as close as a parent, are difficult ones to elucidate. But the picture Sands draws of this ethical dilemma is unforgettable.