There are other, more obvious creative liberties I took with this story. The long-distance motorcycle race from Berlin to Tokyo was an event purely of my own design, though there was a specialist group in the Hitler Youth called the Motor-HJ, which was dedicated to training Germany’s young men to ride motorcycles. The German army also made heavy use of motorcycle troops, known as the Kradschützen, who were valued for their speed and mobility.
The biggest departure from reality, however, is Yael’s skinshifting. One might wonder why I chose to introduce such a fantastic element to such a sobering backdrop.
Racism was inextricable from Hitler’s policies. His belief that Aryans were the master race, destined for world domination, fueled his determination to invade other countries and seize their land as Lebensraum. His twisted racial ladder, along with the desire to keep the Aryan race “pure,” led to evils such as eugenics, forcible sterilization, euthanizing the elderly and handicapped, and eliminating all of those Hitler deemed unfit for life.
What if, in such a setting, race became irrelevant?
This book, at its heart, is about identity. Not only in how we see ourselves, but also about how we see others. What makes people who they are? The color of their skin? The blood in their veins? The uniforms they wear? I gave Yael the ability to skinshift to address these questions, as well as to highlight the absurdity of racial superiority. By taking creative liberty with this surreal element, I hoped to push readers out of their own comfort zones and into Yael’s many skins and, by doing so, to impart a deeper understanding of what humanity is capable of. Both the good and the evil.
By the time this book is published, seventy years will have passed since the Allies won World War II. Some might consider dwelling on history-that-never-was a macabre and upsetting activity. After all, Adolf Hitler did not emerge victorious, and the horrors of the Holocaust were brought to an end. What purpose does it serve to imagine anything otherwise?
For many, it’s tempting to dismiss the Nazis and their policies as evils locked away in history. But racism and anti-Semitism are hardly things of the past. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights reported in its 2013 survey on anti-Semitism that 76 percent of the respondents believe anti-Semitism has increased in their countries over the past five years. In fact, at the time I wrote this author’s note, both the New York Times and Newsweek had published articles on the rise of anti-Semitism, detailing incidents of mobs attacking synagogues.
It’s my hope that Yael’s story will not only remind readers that all people are created equal, but also challenge people to educate themselves on the history behind the fiction and to use this knowledge to examine our present world.
The world within these pages could have been our own. For a time and in a place it was, and we should do our best not to forget that.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was a big, scary, intimidating project from the start, but I had plenty of help, even before I began writing. My friend Nagao brought me armfuls of research books on World War II motorcycles and weaponry, answered my random questions about panniers, and let me stand in Yael’s shoes by teaching me to shoot a genuine Walther P38. My father-in-law spent hours sitting with me at the kitchen table, talking about World War II what-ifs and would-bes. My husband, David, took me on a surprise dirt-biking date, where I got the tiniest taste of the bruises and sore muscles I was putting my characters through. Kate Armstrong and Megan Shepherd both honed this story with their razor-sharp critique skills and led me through many thoughtful conversations on what this book was supposed to be. Anne Blankman let me mine her wealth of World War II–era knowledge. Jacob Graudin introduced me to Hitler’s plans for a Berlin-turned-Germania.
I could not have asked for a better editor for Wolf by Wolf than Alvina Ling, who understands my stories in the best of ways. I’m also forever indebted to my agent, Tracey Adams, who believed in this book when it mattered the most. Nikki Garcia, Hallie Patterson, Kristin Dulaney, Victoria Stapleton, Andrew Smith, Megan Tingley, the NOVL team—you all make working with Little, Brown a phenomenal experience! Thank you. Amber Caravéo, Nina Douglas, and the rest of the Orion team—thank you for giving my stories a wonderful UK home. To my readers—thank you for making it possible for me to live out my childhood dream. To my family—thank you for loving me and nurturing this dream. To my God—thank you for giving me this dream in the first place. Soli Deo Gloria.
Contents
Cover
Disclaimer
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Introduction
Chapter 1: Then
Chapter 2: Now
Chapter 3: Now
Chapter 4: Now
Chapter 5: Now
Chapter 6: Now
Chapter 7: Now
Chapter 8: Now
Chapter 9: Now
Chapter 10: Now
Chapter 11: Now
Chapter 12: Now
Chapter 13: Now
Chapter 14: Now
Chapter 15: Then
Chapter 16: Now
Chapter 17: Now
Chapter 18: Now
Chapter 19: Then
Chapter 20: Now
Chapter 21: Now
Chapter 22: Now
Chapter 23: Now
Chapter 24: Then
Chapter 25: Now
Chapter 26: Now
Chapter 27: Now
Chapter 28: Now
Chapter 29: Now
Chapter 30: Now
Chapter 31: Now
Chapter 32: Now
Chapter 33: Now
Chapter 34: Now
Chapter 35: Now
Chapter 36: Now
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Ryan Graudin, Wolf by Wolf
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