An eerie atmosphere underpins this family saga, which begins with refugees and ends with the persecuted: Poet Dagmar Nick recounts the tumultuous history of her Jewish ancestors in Hamburg, Berlin, and Breslau from the 16th to the 20th century. Rarely has the significance of Jewish life in Germany over generations been conveyed so vividly. They came from Spain, rose from peddlers to court suppliers, and financed several rulers as graciously tolerated court Jews, yet their existence always hung by a thread. A false suspicion could mean imprisonment and torture. For her atmospherically rich narrative, Dagmar Nick draws on remarkable discoveries in numerous archives, as well as the famous memoirs of Glückel of Hameln and the unique account of Isaak Behrens. The great matriarch of German literature.