Victor is ten years old when he leaves Germany for the USA in 1935 with his Jewish mother. His father stays behind to settle business matters and plans to join them a few months later. They wait for him for years. When Victor's mother suddenly abandons him, he must navigate the foreign land alone. He falls in love, is chained and whipped. He becomes a vagabond, businessman, and prisoner. Only the hope of one day returning to Germany and reuniting with his father gives him the strength to endure his odyssey. With an afterword by Gabriele Haefs. Despite all the known circumstances, Crueger tells the story so concisely that one devours the book as if compelled. Can such a life be captured in two hundred pages? Crueger can do it. And he does it excellently.