Shattered Lives

Shattered Lives is a story of survival and a young man's determination to keep his promises. In August 1942, the Germans enter Wiejca, a small village in Poland, and rip fourteen-year-old Jakub Balinski and his father from their home. At Treblinka, Jakub's father becomes a forced laborer breaking rock into gravel. Even though the Germans give Jakub a uniform and call him a guard, within days he learns he is nothing more than the commandant's Polish slave boy. At first, Jakub refuses to cooperate, and is punished for his disobedience. The daily atrocities shred Jakub of his innocence and expose him to a level of hatred he could never imagine. One tragedy after another mold him into someone he does not want to be and Jakub questions if his survival is worth the price. Whatever choices he makes, he knows he must live with their consequences for the rest of his life. While Shattered Lives is a work of historical fiction, Treblinka, the largest Nazi death camp, is not. The camp was critically important to Hitler's "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." Over one million men, women, and children were taken there and ninety-seven percent died in the gas chambers within three hours of arrival.