Only My Life tells the story of a young Dutch Jew, Louis de Wijze. With opportunism and luck, amid death marches, capricious executions, cattle-car train rides, hard labor, and the threat of slow death from starvation, Louis survived.

His story is one of startling irony and amazing good fortune. He postured his way on to the death-camp soccer team, playing (rather well) for the amusement of his SS guards. He fell in with an unscrupulous Jewish smuggler whose close association with an SS officer kept Louis alive. He rode out many months in a makeshift hutch tending rabbits for his masters' table. Finally, at war's end, Louis was battered by an unending death march through wintertime Poland.

Those who fell behind were shot; those who slowed froze where they stood; those who slept were blue-tinged corpses in the morning. On his third attempt, Louis escaped and fled the advancing Soviets by hiding in a knot of high-ranking SS officers' wives.

1. Throughout it all, Louis persevered and was preserved by his humanity and his sense of hope. Only My Life is a testament to unconquered will. Louis was among the five percent of Dutch Jews to survive.