The Seventh Cross

Seven prisoners escape from Westhofen concentration camp. Seven crosses are erected and the commander vows to capture the fugitives within seven days. Six are caught quickly, but George Heisler slips through his pursuers’ fingers and it becomes a matter of pride to track him down, no matter what. The net is closing in. Who can George trust?; who will betray him? The years have changed those he knew best: his little brother is now an SS officer; his ex-wife’s house is constantly watched. Whoever aids in his escape will pay with their life. Hunted, injured and desperate, time is running out and George needs to find someone he can trust. The Seventh Cross is a powerful novel documenting the insidious beginnings of Nazi rule: the sudden imprisonments and seething paranoia. The Seventh Cross was written during the Second World War by one of the most important German writers of the twentieth century – a German Jew living in exile. Her aim, she said, was to write, ‘A tale that makes it possible to get to know the many layers of fascist Germany through the fortunes of a single man.’ She had four copies of the manuscript: one was destroyed in an air raid; a friend lost the second copy while fleeing the Nazis; another was found by the Gestapo; and only the fourth copy survived, sent to her publisher in America, as the writer fled from France. Published in 1942, The Seventh Cross became an immediate bestseller and is one of the only depictions of concentration camps during the Second World War.