A Gripping Journey Through History's Darkest Corridors
Date Published: March 26, 2020
In the summer of 1988, New York art curator Daniel Singer receives a mysterious package from West Berlin, sealed with security tape that will shatter everything he thought he knew about himself and his family. What begins as a simple delivery transforms into an extraordinary odyssey that spans continents and decades, pulling Daniel into a labyrinth of secrets that have been carefully guarded for over forty years.
Newman masterfully constructs a dual timeline that oscillates between May 1945 and July 1988, creating a narrative bridge across generations. In the dying days of World War II, on the American occupied side of Germany's Elbe River, US Army Medical Corps Colonel Samuel Singer stumbles upon the shot-up wreck of a smoldering SS staff car. Inside: a badly injured driver, a dead German Army officer carrying the ID of a Nazi war criminal, and a young blonde woman, also dead in the back seat. This haunting discovery sets in motion a chain of events that will echo across four decades.
The story sweeps across the battlefields of World War I, through the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, into the founding of Israel, and through three Middle East wars. Each historical moment is rendered with meticulous attention to detail and emotional authenticity.
The involvement of the Mossad, Israel's legendary intelligence agency, adds layers of intrigue and suspense to Daniel's quest. As he uncovers shocking truths about his heritage, Daniel must navigate a treacherous landscape where the past and present collide, where old wounds remain fresh, and where the consequences of long-buried secrets threaten to destroy everything he holds dear. Following one American family and two German families, Newman crafts a narrative that explores not just acts of evil and callous indifference but also acts of heroism, generosity, and love in the time of Adolf Hitler's rise and eventual defeat.
Newman's research was exhaustive and deeply personal. He traveled throughout Europe, visiting the actual locations that appear prominently in the book. He walked the streets of Berlin, discovering the stolpersteine, the engraved brass plaques embedded in the cobblestone streets marking where Jewish families lived before the Nazis deported them to their deaths in Auschwitz. He ventured to the Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden near Munich, Hitler's wartime summer home perched high in the Bavarian Alps. Most significantly, he visited Mauthausen concentration camp itself, where his own father had been imprisoned by the Nazis in 1944-45.
"My visits to Mauthausen, Berlin and Hitler's summer home at Eagle's Nest were the motivators for me to write Between These Walls," Newman explains.
"These places provided me with the inspiration and ideas for the plot and premise of the book. With the global rise in antisemitism, the words 'Never again' couldn't ring truer."
Between These Walls is available for purchase through multiple platforms, making it accessible to readers worldwide. The novel is available in both paperback and Kindle editions.
Introduce yourself and tell me about what you do.
I am Michael Newman a retired real estate
executive and World War Two amateur historian. I was born in Budapest Hungary
after the end of the war to Holocaust survivors, and escaped to Austria during
the Hungarian uprising against Soviet rule. I spent some time in a refugee camp
prior to emigrating to Canada with my parents. As an entrepreneur I built
several businesses, the last one a publicly traded real estate investment trust
from which I retired as CEO in 2009. I served for ten years in the Canadian
Armed Forces Reserve. I have travelled internationally, including a surreptious
trip to the front lines in Israel during the 2nd. Lebanon War, that
was reported on by two of Canada’s national newspapers. After my return I
blogged on the war for the National Post. Currently I live on Toronto’s
waterfront with my wife and dog.
Tell me more about your journey as an author, including the writing
processes.
I started my career as an author in 2005 by
writing and publishing a book on entrepreneurship titled “Getting Rich Doing
What You Love”. However I was more intrigued by fiction especially as it
related to the Second World War. I had heard stories of fighting in WW1 from my
two grandfathers who were both in the Austro-Hungarian army, one a major in the
mounted artillery. I also heard first hand accounts of fighting on the Russian
front in WW2 from my father who was at Stalingrad with a forced labour
battalion of Hungarian Jews, and of his incarceration for eight months at
Mauthausen, a Nazi concentration camp in Austria. I made notes of the stories I
heard as a child, planning to incorporate them in a book. The spark came while
on a visit to Berlin with my wife in 2016. While walking along a residential
street in Charlottenburg, a neighbourhood of Berlin, I noticed small brass
plaques imbedded in the sidewalk, with names and dates engraved on them. They
were called Stolpersteine and commemorated Jewish residents of the buildings
above the plaques that were shipped off to Auschwitz and other concentration
camps in Nazi occupied Europe. I wondered who these people were, what happened
to them and who was now occupying their apartments, and how did they come into
their possession? I started thinking about creating a narrative based on
fictional characters undergoing the trauma of persecution, displacement and
death in the camps. After Berlin we travelled to Munich, the birthplace of the
Nazi party under Adolf Hitler, after which we visited “The Eagle’s Nest”,
Hitler’s wartime retreat near Bersteschgaden. The plot and characters began to
gel in my mind when we got to Mauthausen, the Nazi concentration camp that my
father was imprisoned in in 1944/45. The stories that he had told me came alive
while I was in the actual location where they took place. After we got back
home I sat down and began drafting the novel, incorporating the places we had
visited and the stories I had been told as a child. I consulted books and the
internet to research those parts of the novel that were based on actual
historical facts. Two years later I was ready to submit my manuscript to an
editor. After the editor corrected the manuscript I sent it to a publisher, who
released it in March of 2020. Since the release of Between These Walls I have
written a sequel titled Daughter’s Vengeance and have started working on the
third novel in th trilogy titled Cocktails in Tehran.
The “Why”
There are deep personal reasons for having
written the book. Primary among them is to let the world know about my father’s
struggles during the war. Important as well is what we are seeing in the world
today and to bring people’s attention to the evils that are being perpetrated
in the world today, in the name racial superiority, antisemitism and injustice.
It’s also important to realize the role that identity and our perception of who
we are plays in our lives, and that it’s never to late to change direction and
do the right thing.
Tell me about your Book
What if an
unassuming packet from Berlin could unravel the mysteries of a man’s own
identity, shifting his life forever? In Between These Walls, Michael
Newman delivers a multi-layered historical saga centered on New York art
curator Daniel Singer, whose search for his past pulls him into the murky
depths of World War II’s legacy, espionage, and personal secrets. Singer’s
journey becomes a masterful exploration of truth, resilience, and the costs of
confronting the past.
As Daniel
uncovers his roots, his path entangles with characters shaped by both the
atrocities and bravery of wartime. Readers are drawn through the lenses of
three families, each impacted by major conflicts, including World War II, the
Holocaust, and tensions in the Middle East. With vivid storytelling and
intimate character arcs, Between These Walls places readers in each era,
delivering a compelling mix of suspense, history, and human conflict. The
protagonist’s moral dilemma—whether to “right the most heinous of wrongs”—is
both timeless and thought-provoking, elevating the book’s appeal across diverse
markets.
Comparisons
to novels such as All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and The
Nightingale by Kristin Hannah highlight the novel’s emotional depth and
attention to historical nuance, while the international intrigue recalls Daniel
Silva’s Gabriel Allon series, making Between These Walls
especially promising in markets with a strong demand for historical fiction.
Author
Michael Newman’s background adds a layer of authenticity to his narrative. As
the son of Holocaust survivors and a former Hungarian refugee, Newman’s
personal history with political unrest and the immigrant experience brings an
informed, poignant perspective to the novel’s themes. Newman’s career as a
successful real estate magnate and his ventures in Israel during times of
conflict further enhance the book’s narrative drive, adding real-world
connections.
About the Author
Michael Newman brings an unparalleled authenticity to Between These Walls because he writes not as a distant observer of history, but as someone whose life has been indelibly shaped by it. The son of Holocaust survivors, Newman has always had a deep interest in the Second World War, not as an academic pursuit, but as a personal mission to understand and honor the experiences that defined his family's existence. He received first-hand accounts of what happened during WWII in the concentration camps, particularly Mauthausen, where his father was imprisoned.
Newman's mother, aunt, and grandmother were hidden by Righteous Gentiles in Budapest during World War II. His father fought in the Hungarian Army, dug trenches in a forced labor battalion near Stalingrad, and later endured eight terrible months at Mauthausen in Austria. In 1956, at age twelve, Newman himself became a refugee, slogging through mud and snow, dodging guard huts to escape into Austria after the crushed Hungarian uprising against the Soviets.
Years later, as a successful self-made real estate magnate and founder of InterRent, a real estate investment trust on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Newman could have allowed his professional achievements to define him. Instead, he chose to honor his heritage by telling a story that needed to be told. He has since taken his wife, three children, and one granddaughter on trips to Mauthausen, ensuring that the next generation never forgets.
During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, concerned over what he perceived as one-sided news coverage against Israel, he had the opportunity to travel, surreptitiously, to Israel. Using a connection with an Israeli intelligence colonel, Newman spent a week in the war zone, visiting bomb shelters, air raid command centers, and troops in the field. This experience became a model for a character in his book who helped Israel fight for independence in 1948.
"I am not a religious person, but I do identify myself with what happened during the Holocaust and I am very much a Zionist and support the founding of Israel," Newman says.
This conviction breathes through every page of Between These Walls, giving the novel an emotional authenticity that resonates with readers across all backgrounds.
Today, Newman lives on Toronto's waterfront with his wife, Dixie, and their Morkie, Mia. Surrounded by five children and eleven grandchildren, he has transformed the pain of his family's past into a gift for future generations. Writing books, as Newman admits, is "a career change I wasn't expecting to make at this stage of life. It's been gratifying for the ego." He is currently working on a sequel with the working title A Daughter's Revenge, and has hired a screenwriter on spec to craft a six-part series based on his first book.
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