Polish historian Grynberg gives us an up-close view of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The 29 letters and diary entries from various ghetto inhabitants combine to present a disturbingly clear view of what it was like to be at the mercy of Hitler’s bureaucratically oiled extermination machine (less than 1% of the 500,000 ghetto Jews survived). Particularly chilling: the attempts by the ghetto’s leaders to stave off the inevitable death-trip to Treblinka. Theirs was a brave but doomed task, and their words should be read by anyone who is not already horrified by today’s European and American creep toward totalitarianism. Reviewed on Oct. 1, 2020