Many Jews coming from various parts of Eastern Europe found refuge in Germany, of all places, in huge “displaced-persons camps.” They made up as many Jews as had lived in the country before the war, only they were younger and unexpectedly active. While few German Jews returned to the “land of the murderers,” the new migrants took their place. This chapter tells the tale of their settlement in Germany, parallel to the building up the Federal Republic, especially under the the US military occupation. They could only observe with unease the signs of antisemitism in the new German state, and support the early acts of restitution as well as the financial agreement with Israel signed in 1952. They were also the first to demand some sort of confrontation with the Nazi past. Fritz Bauer, a Jewish jurist who fled to Denmark and later to Sweden during the war and finally returned to Germany afterwards, took it upon himself, as the Prosecutor of the State of Hessen, to organize and then serve as prosecutor in the so-called Auschwitz trials. The chapter ends with his life-story.

How should the United States end the war with Japan? Secretary of War Stimson agonized over the use of the atomic bomb, knowing it would kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians. But he also recoiled at the thought of an invasion of Japan, which would likely cost many Allied soldiers’ lives. There had to be an alternative. He found a third option in conditional surrender: allowing the Japanese to retain their Emperor. If Japan’s leaders could be assured that the Emperor could remain on his throne safe from prosecution, then perhaps they might be induced to surrender. This chapter tracks the convoluted course by which high officials tried to maneuver President Truman toward conditional surrender and away from the other two costly options.

Eleanor Roosevelt has long been seen as the conscience of the nation, but too little attention has focused on her support of the Japanese-American internment. Caught in the impossible position of opposing internment yet needing to support her husband’s policy, Mrs. Roosevelt publicly backed the plan. When we listen back to her speeches and read her writings at the time, we find a person trying her best to ameliorate the worst aspects of the government’s actions, but simultaneously revealing far less public concern for the victims than we might have imagined.Mrs. Roosevelt’s morally muddled actions contrasted with those of Assistant War Secretary John McCloy. The chapter examines McCloy’s extensive knowledge of German sabotage and how this effected his perception of the Japanese-American threat.

The final chapter asks what became of the men and women who played vital parts in America’s struggles between vengeance and virtue. It asks whether any of these leaders regretted their actions, which actions, and why.