A fugitive train loaded with the plunder of a doomed people. A dazzling jewelled pendant in the form of a stylized peacock. And three men - an American infantry captain in World War II, an Israeli-born dealer in art stolen by the Nazis, and a pioneering psychiatrist in fin-de-siecle Budapest - who find their carefully-wrought lives turned upside-down by three fierce women, each locked in a struggle against her own history and the history of our times....

"1939: the Nazis have invaded Prague. Little Anna huddles with her doll in the corner of a train car while a German officer shrieks, 'You are Jews!' Fleeing for their lives, her family has abandoned their elegant house near Prague Castle, bringing their life of privilege to an abrupt halt. Through Anna?s eyes, we relive magical Christmases, summers in the country, and a terrifying trip to Nazi Dresden that changes everything. We witness the family?s...

"From a gifted young writer, the story of his quest to reclaim his family's apartment building in Poland-and of the astonishing entanglement with Nazi treasure hunters that follows"--

"On a summer day in 1945, an Orthodox man and his grown son return to a village in Hungary while the villagers prepare for the wedding of the town clerk's son. The townspeople-- suspicious, remorseful, fearful, and cunning-- expect the worst and behave accordingly. The town clerk fears the men may be heirs of the village's deported Jews and expects them to demand their illegally acquired property back"--Container.

"When Nazis looked to flee Europe with stolen art, gems, and gold in tow, certain "neutral" countries were all too willing to assist them. By the end of January 1945, it was clear to Germany that the war was lost. The Third Reich was in freefall, and its leaders, apart from those clustered around Hitler in his Berlin bunker, sought to abscond before they were besieged. But they wanted to take their wealth with them. Their escape routes were diverse:...

The expropriation of assets from German Jews, during the Third Reich, benefitted virtually every other German citizen. It was not only the Gestapo who invaded Jewish residences in order to confiscate all property from bank accounts to the last item of clothing, it was the German tax officials. A bizarre competition evolved between bureaucrats as to how to organize the robbery of the Jews before they were expelled, or sent to their deaths. Larger assets...

In 1939, the S.S. Saint Louis spent several days anchored at Havana while waiting for the Cuban authorities to allow 900 Jewish refugees from Germany into their country. Confident that a painting by Rembrandt that had belonged to their family since the 17th century--and which they had smuggled on board the ship--would convince the Cubans to let them in, little Daniel Kaminsky and his uncle waited at the dock for their relatives to disembark. But the...