Gerhard Bast was found shot in an abandoned bunker in northern Italy in April 1947. Pollack digs deeply into the archives and travels to the places important in the history of the Bast family and in his father's Nazi career.



Gerhard Bast was found shot in an abandoned bunker in northern Italy in April 1947. A middle-ranking SS officer and an early member of the Nazi Party, Bast had been on the run since the end of the war after being involved in atrocities in Slovakia. In attempting to piece together his father's life, Martin Pollack assembles the memories of family and friends, carefully reconstructing their lives. Pollack digs deeply into the archives and travels to the places important in the history of the Bast family and in his father's Nazi career. A provocative and devastating memoir which also reveals Europe's darkest past.