Padlocked

Padlocked is an epic historical novel that follows the lives of a group of ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances as Nazi Germany invades Poland in 1939.  Two foreign photojournalists are trapped between armies at Festungsfront Oder-Warthe-Bogen, along Poland's western border with Germany.  A young woman is separated from her sister in Warsaw as the Nazis encircle it and navigates her war-torn country in search of her.  A young man joins the Jungdeutsche Partei, or the Young German Party, and rises to a position where he can dictate life or death, while a nurse joins the Armia Krajowa, or Polish Underground Resistance. While they don't know one another at the start of their journeys, each will make decisions that have the power to transform them and place them on paths that ultimately converge on January 27, 1945, as the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates to Auschwitz-Birkenau for all the world to see. This is a story about the strength of love, courage, faith, and resilience in the face of unimaginable hatred and obsession with power.