The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed

A single photographan exceptionally rare action shot documenting the horrific murder of a Jewish familydrives a riveting forensic investigation by a gifted Holocaust scholar. In 2009, the acclaimed author of Hitlers Furies was shown a photograph just brought to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The documentation of the Holocaust is vast, but there are virtually no images of a Jewish family at the actual moment of murder, in this case by German officials and Ukrainian collaborators. A Ukrainian shooters rifle is inches from a womans head, obscured in a cloud of smoke. The woman is bending forward, holding the hand of a barefoot boy. Andonly one of the shocking revelations of Wendy Lowers brilliant ten-year investigation of this imagethe photograph reveals the shins of another child, slipping from the womans lap. Wendy Lowers gripping detective workin Ukraine, Germany, Slovakia, Israel, and the United Statesrecovers astonishing layers of detail concerning the open-air massacres in Ukraine. The identities of the victims, of the killersand, remarkably, of the photographer who openly took the picture, as a secret act of resistanceare dramatically uncovered. Finally, in the hands of this exceptional scholar, a single image unlocks a new understanding of the place of the family unit in the history and aftermath of Nazi genocide.