Bramhall characterization of Melania.

Dear Commons Community,

A big-budget documentary about first lady Melania Trump is getting roasted online as theaters struggle to sell tickets ahead of its cinematic release.

The film, which follows Donald Trump’s wife during the 20 days leading up to the president’s second inauguration last year, opened yesterday in an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 theaters nationwide.

However, social media users have mocked the apparent lack of interest in Melania by posting screenshots of cinema showtimes with scores of unsold seats just days before its highly publicized release.  As reported by the Daily Beast.

“Not a single ticket sold for the opening night 9:55 p.m. showing of Melania at the busiest movie theater in the metro Jacksonville area,” Travis Akers, a former naval intelligence officer turned community activist, posted on X, sharing an image of an empty booking screen in Trump’s adopted home state of Florida.

“How many days until we learn that the RNC bought movie tickets for the Melania movie just to fluff the numbers?” he added.

Author and documentary filmmaker Greg Mitchell posted: “Trump claims that Melania screenings are selling out fast. At my large nearby multiplex, for four screenings on opening day Friday they have so far sold… 20 tickets.”

Journalist Mike Rothschild, an expert on QAnon and other conspiracies, also shared screenshots showing empty Melania screenings at multiple theaters in California.

“Four theaters in the LA area, five total tickets sold for Friday night MELANIA showings,” Rothschild wrote. “AMC in Orange County, Saturday night, zero MELANIA tickets sold.

“These are ZYZZYX ROAD numbers,” he added, referencing the 2006 flop, which at the time had the lowest-grossing opening day in U.S. box office history after earning just $30.

The Daily Beast also found multiple examples of Melania screenings in New York and Los Angeles theaters with either sparsely sold or entirely unsold tickets.

Even a 7:10 p.m. showing at an AMC theater in Lawrenceville, Georgia—a state Trump won in 2024—remained completely unsold as of Tuesday morning.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Amazon MGM Studios bought the rights to the film for $40 million and has reportedly spent an additional $35 million promoting it.

The studio also reportedly paid director Brett Ratner—who has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women—around $40 million to helm the project, according to Puck.

The National Research Group estimates that Melania will pull in just $5 million during its opening weekend.

The film is also bombing overseas. According to The Guardian, Melania is selling poorly—or not at all—in the few dozen cinemas where it is playing across the U.K.

“I’d be amazed if box office even gets reported on this title,” one industry analyst told the newspaper.

Melania is disliked as much as her husband including large segments of the theater-going population.

Tony

Kevin Warsh.  Credit: Tierney L. Cross / Bloomberg via Getty Images / Tierney L CROSS

Dear Commons Community,

President Trump announced yesterday that he plans to nominate Kevin Warsh as the chair of the Federal Reserve to replace Jerome Powell.  Initial reaction is that Warsh is a safe choice likely to be confirmed by the Senate.

Powell, who has led the Fed since February 2018 after being nominated for the top role by Mr. Trump during his first term as president, is set to step down in May 2026. In his second term, however, Mr. Trump has grown increasingly critical of Powell, regularly disparaging the Fed chief and pressing him to lower interest rates.  As reported by CBS.

Warsh, 55, served as a Federal Reserve governor  — one of seven officials who guide the central bank’s policy decisions — from 2006 through 2011, a period that includes the deep recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis.

In recent years, Warsh has grown increasingly critical of the Fed, arguing that the institution has become excessively focused on backward-looking economic data rather than anticipating changes, Deutsche Bank analysts said in a December 15 report. Still, Warsh has held hawkish views, meaning that he has emphasized the importance of fighting inflation, leaning toward keeping interest rates higher rather than cutting, experts note.

Trump’s nomination of Warsh is “one of the better outcomes for investors compared to the other contenders that had been in the running,” said Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics, in a note to investors.

“Warsh’s long-running hawkish views should help to counteract concerns that he might morph into a full-blown Trump stooge,” he added.

In a November Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Warsh said the Fed’s “bloated balance sheet” has contributed to the economic malaise affecting many Americans, allowing borrowing to be “too easy” for Wall Street while “credit on Main Street is too tight.”

Aligned with Trump on interest rates

The Federal Reserve raises and lowers its benchmark interest rate as necessary to control inflation and support job growth — a mission central bank officials have long said requires insulating the Fed from political pressure.

Warsh has recently argued for lower interest rates, a view that aligns with Mr. Trump’s push for the Fed to ease borrowing costs.

“On policy decisions, Warsh’s recent comments suggest he could support lower policy rates, possibly counterbalanced by a smaller balance sheet,” the Deutsche Bank analysts said.

The Fed held rates steady at its Jan. 28 meeting, marking the central bank’s first pause after three consecutive cuts. Powell cited the U.S. economy’s strong growth and a stabilization in the labor market as reasons that the majority of the 12-person Federal Open Market Committee voted to keep its benchmark rate unchanged at between 3.5% and 3.75.%.

Mr. Trump criticized the decision on Thursday, writing on social media, “The Fed should substantially lower interest rates, NOW!”

To be sure, Warsh’s view wouldn’t necessarily dictate Fed policy, given that the Fed chair doesn’t set interest rates unilaterally. Rather, decisions on the federal funds rate, which affects borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, are set by a majority vote among the 12 members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

FOMC members are also likely to signal to Wall Street that the central bank remains insulated from political pressure after a change in Fed leadership, reducing the odds of a sharp shift in monetary policy, Deutsche Bank said.

In the orbit of billionaires

Warsh, a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, went to work on Wall Street at Morgan Stanley after getting his law degree. He worked in mergers and acquisitions at the investment bank.

In 2002, Warsh joined President George W. Bush’s administration, where he worked in the National Economic Council. The president tapped him to serve on the Fed board of governors in 2006, making Warsh the youngest person ever to hold the position.

Since leaving the Fed in 2011, Warsh has worked for think tanks such as the conservative-leaning Hoover Institution and has also taught at Stanford Business School.

More recently, Warsh has worked with billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, whose estimated $11 billion net worth stems from his work at hedge funds such as George Soros’ Quantum Fund.

In 2011, Druckenmiller appointed Warsh to serve as a partner at the investor’s Duquesne Family Office, where Warsh told Barron’s that he oversees the billionaire’s “small nest egg.”

Warsh is also married to a billionaire: cosmetics heiress Jane Lauder, whose net worth is estimated at $2.5 billion by Forbes.

In a July interview with CNBC, Warsh expressed optimism about the Trump administration’s economic policies, as well as the potential for artificial intelligence to boost business productivity.

“AI is going to make everything cost less, and the U.S. could be the big winner,” he said. “If I were the president, what I would be worried about is a central bank that doesn’t see any of that — a central bank that is stuck with models from 1978.”

Assuming he is confirmed, we wish Warsh the best!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Science has an article this morning entitled, ”The great government brain drain” which reports that more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s in the federal government left or lost their jobs after Donald Trump took office.  As reported.

Some 10,109 doctoral-trained experts in science and related fields left their government jobs last year as President Donald Trump dramatically shrank the overall federal workforce. That exodus was only 3% of the 335,192 federal workers who exited last year but represents 14% of the total number of Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) or health fields employed at the end of 2024 as then President Joe Biden prepared to leave office.

The numbers come from employment data posted earlier this month by the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM). At 14 research agencies Science examined in detail, departures outnumbered new hires last year by a ratio of 11 to one, resulting in a net loss of 4224 STEM Ph.D.s. The data show the impact is particularly striking at such scientist-rich agencies as the National Science Foundation (NSF). But across the government, the departing Ph.D.s took with them some 106,000 years of total federal work experience, representing a wealth of subject matter expertise and knowledge about how the agencies operate.

DEPARTURES SURGED IN 2025

Every one of the 14 agencies that Science analyzed lost far more STEM Ph.D.s in 2025 than in 2024, before Trump took office. The National Institutes of Health tops the list with more than 1100 departures, compared with 421 in 2024. On average, the 14 agencies lost roughly three times more of these experts in 2025 than in 2024, with the highest percent increase in departures at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). At the same time, the number of STEM Ph.D.s hired at every agency was dramatically lower last year than in 2024.

WHERE THE LOSSES WERE GREATEST

Although the payroll for both STEM Ph.D.s and other workers shrank across the agencies that Science examined, research roles at four were hit particularly hard. NSF, EPA, the Department of Energy, and USFS all lost a greater percentage of that highly trained workforce than of other employees. At NSF, the net reduction of 205 STEM Ph.D.s between 1 January and 30 November constituted 40% of its total pre-Trump Ph.D. workforce of 517, by far the largest percentage at any agency. STEM Ph.D.s also make up a larger percentage of the total workforce at NSF than at any other agency—some 30% in the waning days of the Biden administration. The losses reduced that percentage to 26% by 30 November 2025.

WHY THEY LEFT

Science’s analysis found that reductions in force, or RIFs, accounted for relatively few departures in 2025. Only at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where 16% of the 519 STEM Ph.D.s who left last year got pink RIF slips, did the percentage exceed 6%, and some agencies reported no STEM Ph.D. RIFs in 2025.

At most agencies, the most common reasons for departures were retirements and quitting. Although OPM classifies many of these as voluntary, outside forces including the fear of being fired, the lure of buyout offers, or a profound disagreement with Trump policies likely influenced many decisions to leave.

Many Ph.D.s departed because their position was terminated. At NSF, 45% of the 204 STEM Ph.D.s who left last year were rotators—academics on leave from their university to work for a few years at the agency. Last year, NSF eliminated three-quarters of those positions.

God forbid we should have intelligent people working in government!

Tony

Conceptual diagram of China’s ADA Space’s space data center. /ADA Space.

Dear Commons Community,

China plans to launch space‑based artificial intelligence data centers over the next five years, state media reported on yesterday, a challenge to Elon Musk’s plan to deploy SpaceX data centers to outer space.

China’s main space contractor, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), vowed to “construct gigawatt-class space digital-intelligence infrastructure,” according to a five-year development plan that was cited by state broadcaster CCTV.  As reported by Reuters.

The new space data centers will “integrate cloud, edge and terminal (device) capabilities” and achieve the “deep integration of computing power, storage capacity and transmission bandwidth,” enabling data from Earth to be processed in space, the report said.

U.S. firm SpaceX expects to use funds from its planned $25 billion blockbuster IPO this year to develop orbital AI data centers in response to terrestrial energy constraints with plans to launch them within the next two to three years.

“It’s a no-brainer building solar-power data centers in space … the lowest-cost place to put AI will be space and that will be true within two years, three at the latest,” Musk said.

He said solar generation in orbit can produce five times more power than panels on the ground.

China also plans to shift the energy-intensive burden of AI processing into orbit, utilizing “gigawatt-class” solar-powered hubs to create an industrial-scale “Space Cloud” by 2030, according to a December CASC policy document.

The document identifies the integration of space-based solar power with AI computing as a core pillar of the upcoming 15th Five Year Plan, China’s economic development roadmap.

The CASC plan also vowed to “achieve the flight operation of suborbital space tourism and gradually develop orbital space tourism” in the next five years, CCTV reported.

China and the U.S. are competing as they look to turn space exploration into a commercially viable business similar to civil aviation, as well as becoming the first to exploit the military and strategic advantages of space dominance. CASC has vowed to transform China into a “world-leading space power” by 2045.

But Beijing’s key bottleneck so far is its failure to complete a reusable rocket test. U.S. rival SpaceX’s Falcon 9 reusable rocket has allowed its subsidiary Starlink to achieve a near-monopoly on low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and it is also used for orbital space tourism.

Reusability is crucial to lowering the costs of rocket launches and making it cheaper to send satellites into space. China achieved a record 93 space launches last year, according to official announcements, buoyed by its rapidly maturing commercial spaceflight startups.

CASC’s plans were announced after China inaugurated its first School of Interstellar Navigation housed in the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, aiming to foster the next generation of space talent in frontier fields including interstellar propulsion and deep space navigation.

The new institution signals China’s ambitions to strategically transition from near-Earth orbit operations to deep space exploration.

“The next 10 to 20 years will be a window for leapfrog development in China’s interstellar navigation field. Original innovation in basic research and technological breakthroughs will reshape the pattern of deep space exploration,” Xinhua wrote on the inauguration.

AI, data centers, and outer space.  What a combination of technological development!

Tony

Rep. Ilhan Omar attacked by Anthony J. Kazmierczak.

Dear Commons Community,

During a town hall event in Minneapolis on Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was sprayed with unknown liquid in a syringe by Anthony J. Kazmierczak.  He was arrested on suspicion of third degree assault by Minneapolis Police.  As reported by Time.

Court documents show Kazmierczak was convicted of driving while impaired in two separate incidents in 2010 and in 2009. On Facebook, Kazmierczak has switched his profile pictures to Trump many times while also uploading cartoons criticizing Democrats’ policies.

In January 2025, a Quora account under the same name and profile picture as Kazmierczak’s Facebook account posted a racist question regarding descendants of slaves paying restitution to Union soldiers’ families.

Video footage shows Omar was calling for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and for Homeland Security Kristi Noem to resign when the suspect jumped in front of her and sprayed the liquid on her shirt. The staffers on the scene said in the video that the liquid had a strong smell. Local media reported the liquid had an orange color and emitted a strong vinegar-like odor.

Following the incident, the town hall was briefly halted. Omar, while visibly shaken, insisted on continuing the event and called for Minnesotans to stay strong and resilient. She later posted on X that she was OK.

“This moment in U.S. history and particularly in Minnesota requires all of us to be working together to preserve our democracy. When we say we are going to put our lives on the line for what is our right, we mean that, ” Omar said in her speech following the attack.

Asked on Tuesday if he had seen the video footage, President Trump told ABC News that he had not, but suggested the attack on Omar was staged. Omar is one of a handful of Democrats Trump has repeatedly attacked over the years, and suggested the Congresswoman, who is a U.S. citizen, should be deported. In recent weeks, Trump has tried to tie Omar to a fraud scandal in her home state, claiming without evidence that she’s worth $44 million, and calling for the Department of Justice to investigate her.

“I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud,” Trump said Tuesday.

Local officials in Minneapolis were united in defending Omar and condemning the attacker. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey posted on X that “violence and intimidation have no place in Minneapolis.” Minneapolis City Council Member LaTrisha Vitaw, who attended the town hall event, said the attack was “unacceptable and deeply concerning.”

“Despite this, my fellow elected officials and I remain committed to serving and representing the people of Minneapolis,” she said on Facebook.

Several congressional Republicans have also voiced their concerns following the incident. Rep. Lawler of New York and Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri both condemned the attack. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who moved to subpoena Omar’s immigration record earlier this month, said on X that she is “deeply disturbed” by the incident.

“Regardless of how vehemently I disagree with her rhetoric – and I do – no elected official should face physical attacks,” Mace wrote. “This is not who we are.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Sounds like the USA in 2026!

Tony

San Andreas Fault, one of the components of the Mendocino Triple Junction. Mike – stock.adobe.com

Dear Commons Community,

As if our country did not have enough to be concerned about, scientists have found previously concealed fault lines along California’s north coast, sparking concerns that we could be drastically underestimating the earthquake risk in the region, per a seismic study published in the journal “Science.”

“If we don’t understand the underlying tectonic processes, it’s hard to predict the seismic hazard,” declared study co-author Amanda Thomas, professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Davis.

The area in question is the Mendocino Triple Junction, a seismic hot zone in the Pacific Ocean where three tectonic plates converge: the San Andreas Fault ending in the north, the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the south, and the Mendocino Fault in the east.

As three fault systems collide here, this tectonic triple threat boasts some of the highest levels of seismic activity in the US. It was the source of the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that rocked Humboldt County in 1992.

However, the researchers discovered that the Triple Junction is comprised of a whopping five moving plates, not three — two of which are hidden from the surface.

In other words, we could be on shakier ground than previously thought, with frightening implications for the millions of people living in the region.

Lead author David Shelly of the USGS Geologic Hazards Center in Golden, Colorado analogized our understanding to glimpsing just the tip of the iceberg.

“You can see a bit at the surface, but you have to figure out what is the configuration underneath,” he declared.

Researchers happened across the quake-inducing quintet by employing a network of seismometers in the Pacific Northwest to track “low-frequency” earthquakes deep underground where tectonic plates grind against one another.

These tremors are reportedly too small to detect at the surface, per the research, which was confirmed using tidal-sensitivity models.

One of these tectonic threats is a chunk of the North American plate has broken off and is being pulled down along with the Gorda plate at the southern end of the Cascadia subduction zone.

The model also proved the theorized existence of the Pioneer fragment, a remnant of the ancient Farrallon plate that used to traverse the California coastline that has not all but disappeared. This straggler is now being dragged underneath the North American plate — a process called subduction.

However, the subducting surface of the quake-inducing quintet is not as deep as previously thought, which would explain why the 1992 earthquake’s origin point was so shallow.

“It had been assumed that faults follow the leading edge of the subducting slab, but this example deviates from that,” said tectonic geodesist Kathryn Materna, from the University of Colorado Boulder. “The plate boundary seems not to be where we thought it was.”

Tony

Kristi Noem

Dear Commons Community,

The National Review in its editorial on Monday deemed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem the single-most “incompetent” official in the Trump administration, citing her remarks on Saturday’s fatal shooting in Minneapolis and begging for her to be fired.  

While the conservative magazine has broken with Trump over various issues before, staff writer Jeffrey Blehar argues that Noem has become his biggest problem and has exacerbated sky-high tensions after U.S Customs and Border Protection agents fatally shot Alex Pretti.

“I will say this: Any hope of Trump’s presidency clawing its way out of the hole it has dug for itself begins with firing Kristi Noem, current secretary of homeland security and the administration’s most prominent ‘ride-along disaster’ during its first year,” wrote Blehar.

He continued, “Preferably out of a rocket, and into the sun.”

Blehar was arguing that the Trump administration is in dire need of damage control after federal agents in Minneapolis were filmed disarming Pretti, who lawfully had a gun on his person while documenting local protests, and fatally shooting the 37-year-old ICU nurse.

He argued Noem has become the administration’s “most visible avatar of damage,” citing her claims during a press conference about the incident, and pleaded with Trump: “Stanch the bleeding by canning your most incompetent lieutenant.”

Noem said Saturday at the FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C., “This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That’s the facts.”

Blehar countered Monday, “Oh, are they? Alex Pretti committed ‘domestic terrorism’ by being there? ‘This looks like a situation where an individual arrived to inflict maximum damage and kill law enforcement,’ Noem said. I am envious of her mind-reading ability.”

He continued, “For my own part, I saw a guy executed while face down on the street.”

Noem baselessly claimed Saturday that Pretti wanted to “kill law enforcement.”

Eyewitness videos captured Saturday appear to show Pretti filming an interaction between two women and a federal agent before he was wrestled to the ground by about six agents and disarmed. Then, around 10 rounds were fired into Pretti’s body.

Noem on Saturday refused to answer whether the federal agents disarmed Pretti before he was shot. The senior MAGA official instead blamed Pretti, just as she did after an ICE officer in Minnesota shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good earlier this month.

Blehar on Monday went on to tear Noem apart for supposedly exhibiting her “previously undisclosed powers of clairvoyance” in baselessly asserting that Pretti was attempting to “kill law enforcement,” and continued making his case for Trump to let her go.

Noem is the worst of several Trump appointees.  I would add Robert Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth to the “firing” squad.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yale University is broadening its financial-aid program to cover more middle-class families, saying that beginning this fall, students from households earning up to $200,000 can attend tuition-free.

Currently, students admitted to the university whose families earn up to $100,000 will pay nothing.

Tuition at Yale next school year is $72,500, with the full cost of attendance, including room and board, fees, and books, at about $98,000.

Yale has already doubled its number of low-income students in recent years and is now one of the small group of very wealthy universities, including Harvard and MIT, that make similar offers to six-figure households.  As reported by The Wall Street Journal and Newsmax.

“We have made a lot of progress with low-income families and students over the past decade, and now we want to continue to make those inroads with some of our middle-class and upper-middle-class families,” said Jeremiah Quinlan, Yale’s dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid.

Out of 6,800 Yale undergraduates today, more than 1,000 attend the university at no cost and 56% receive some aid, according to The Journal.

Yale’s endowment rose 11% last year to $44 billion.

Since 2020, Yale has been tuition-free for families earning $75,000. The increase to $100,000 means nearly half of American families with school-age children will be eligible to attend the university tuition-free, Yale said.

Quinlan noted that the deal is limited to families with “typical assets,” declining to elaborate on how the university defines typical. “If you have an outsized asset portfolio, even if you have an income level that’s in one of these areas, you might get a different financial-aid offer,” he added.

Student attendance at elite private schools such as Yale varies significantly by family income, according to Opportunity Insights, a Harvard-based research group. Low-income and high-income students fare better in enrollment than “the missing middle,” the group said.

The past few years have brought a number of announcements from schools making their financial aid more generous, including Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania, which each offer tuition-free entry to families earning up to about $200,000.

Colleges including Stanford, Princeton, and the University of Texas system cover tuition for students whose families earn close to or above six figures.

Quinlan said “there’s an inherent challenge to this high-cost-of-attendance, high-aid model. These thresholds have been helpful in communicating with prospective students and families in a very noisy information environment.”

Welcome move on the part of Yale and other financially well-endowed universities.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading, The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto:  The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising by Elizabeth R. Hyman.  It recounts the contributions of several women who were active and heavily involved in the resistance movement in Poland.  It focuses extensively on the Warsaw Uprising centered in the Polish Ghetto. The Uprising was a suicide mission on the part of the brave resisters who were significantly outnumbered by the better-equipped Germans. If you are not familiar with the Uprising, you will find Hyman’s book enlightening especially in terms of the cruelty inflicted on the Jews by the German occupiers.   While I would have liked more background and character development of the women in the book, it is a good historical account. If you are interested in this topic, I would also recommend Agent Zo by Clare Mulley, the story of Elzbieta Zawacka – nom de guerre “Zo” – a World War II resistance fighter who also operated in Poland.

Below is a review of The Girl Bandits…, compliments of The Gloss.

Tony

The Gloss

Review of The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto….

Reviewed by Rachel Taran

Rating: 4.0/5

I’ve always been a fan of historical fiction (looking at you Kristin Hannah), particularly WWII era stories. If you relate to that and you’re anything like me, you likely haven’t ever actually read a NONFICTION historical book since your high school history textbook. With that, The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto was my first experience diving into historical nonfiction, and while I consider myself a strong and avid reader, the heavy historical content of this book did prove to be a challenge. This consistent difficulty I felt at following the ever-changing timeline, people, places, and events is the only reason for my rating of 4 stars instead of 5. However for me, the unbelievable stories told were well worth the struggle.

There were many parts of this book that were incredibly hard to get through (as to be expected from a retelling of events that took place during the Holocaust) and it was a roller coaster of a read the entire time. Every time I put the book down, “how could this have happened?” was the question that I couldn’t let go of, and it often stuck in my mind throughout the rest of my day. I experienced so many emotions as I made my way through this book from anger and horror, to grief and disbelief, but also… to hope. I clung to the uplifting moments and heroic acts of the resistance fighters like a life preserver, knowing that whenever I turned a page, I would soon encounter the gut punch of yet another horrific and tragic detail. And yet, the fighters never gave up. It truly was inspirational reading about how those living through such dark times could still summon the strength to persevere.

Even though I went into this book fully aware of the outcome of the Holocaust, I was rooting for every single person involved. So many of the story’s details are even described by the very people that lived them thanks to the author’s abundant inclusion of primary resources. Keep in mind that there are many sad endings in this book, but if you have any interest in history, WWII, the Holocaust, or amazing stories of courageous and resilient humans that you likely haven’t heard before, you should definitely check out this book.