After fleeing to France in the wake of the Night of the Broken Glass, Abraham Mahler joins the mass of humanity seeking to escape the lightning advances of the Wehrmacht. In Marseilles he is arrested and transported to the concentration camp Birkenau, often referred to as Auschwitz - Birkenau, where he rises to the rank of kapo and rules over zone B2d's kitchen, a fragile, insular world dedicated to feeding the zone's Jews. Driven by his conviction that the keys to survival are obedience, hard work and manipulation of the system, he drives his staff onward. But on one frigid January day in 1944 his world is threatened by a Ukrainian criminal. Armed with an iron pipe and an insatiable urge to kill, he seeks blood and victims.