This book is the story of the author's great-grandfather, Siegfried Merzbacher, a German-Jewish chemist who collaborated with the Nazi regime. Merzbacher worked on various household products, including a toothpaste that used radioactive material. He worked gas masks and chemical weapons prior to the outbreak of World War II. His research was certainly taken into consideration for the later gassing of Jewish people during the Holocaust. The author takes a deep dive into Merzbacher's career and how he dealt with it. The book also takes a couple of really wild turns that I was not expecting.

As a history major who specialized in World War II history, I find books like this extraordinarily interesting and extremely important to the historical record. A lot of people, Nazis, former Nazi allies, collaborators, and look-the-other-way types buried their wartime activities. I am certain that a decent portion of those people regretted their part and had a hard time living with the things that they saw and did. Certainly, there were many that did not, especially when they got to waltz along through life without having to pay any price. I think in our modern era people get taken by charismatic people who manipulate them and use hot topics as a way to garner support and obedience. It was very clearly the same 80+ years ago. I also think that people look back at this time without thinking about how hard it was to live through, needing to make sure you had shelter and food, a job, or weren't sent to a camp to be killed. People probably did a lot of things they would not normally do to survive. I think all of those things should be considered when reading this book.

I listened to this Audible version on my commute to and from work at the beginning of the week. I actually bought this book because I thought it had something to do with people that used radium products, and, while it did, it was about so much more. I was really pleased with this purchase, and I was so into this book that I forced my coworker to listen to my dramatic updates about it. I thought the author did a really tremendous job researching chemical weapons and the use of radium in products. I thought it was really brave, in a sense, to confront the obvious collaboration of someone in your family with a group that is known to history for a major atrocity. I am sure the author and his family went through a lot of feelings during this process, and probably still are as the reviews and comments about this book roll in. I really, really enjoyed this book. It is absolutely one of the best ones I have read so far this year.