His art kept him alive. Her love kept him unbro­ken.

At once a tale of hor­ror and beau­ty, Bau: Artist at War is one man’s mem­oir of a mir­a­cle: the bloom of love in the depths of a Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camp. Along the way, Joseph Bau also shares his expe­ri­ence of oth­er wartime trau­mas — the bomb­ing of Kraków, the bru­tal­i­ty of the ghet­to, the harsh last days at Oskar Schindler’s fac­to­ry — with sur­pris­ing wit and irony, a tone enhanced by his bril­liant black-and-white draw­ings. Above all, Bau’s sto­ry is a cel­e­bra­tion of his wife, Rebec­ca. Mar­ried in secret, they had a mutu­al devo­tion that fueled their humor, resilien­cy, and ulti­mate tri­umph in the face of unspeak­able evil.