This riv­et­ing, fast-paced biog­ra­phy traces the extra­or­di­nary life of Gary ​“Pips” Phillips who defied the odds at every turn. With an Aryan moth­er and Jew­ish father, Pips could have escaped much of the Holocaust’s hor­rors. Instead, he made a fate­ful deci­sion at age 13 to become a bar mitz­vah just as the Nurem­berg Laws were enact­ed. Pips’ wartime expe­ri­ence is marked by dar­ing escapes, improb­a­ble res­cues, and sur­vival while hid­ing deep with­in Nazi Berlin. Cap­tured four times, he escaped thrice. At his place of con­fine­ment, he met his future wife, Olga Hor­vath, who had been impris­oned after sur­viv­ing Auschwitz and the Death March to Bergen-Belsen. After their mar­riage in post-war Berlin, they emi­grat­ed to the USA to start a new life. Arriv­ing in New York with noth­ing, Pips rose from wait­er to co-own­er of the world’s largest pho­to agency — despite nev­er own­ing a cam­era. Unlike Pips, Olga was unable to escape the shad­ow of her Holo­caust expe­ri­ences, and in a hor­ri­fy­ing twist, she threw her­self off the roof of their high-rise after more than 50 years of mar­riage, leav­ing Pips grief-strick­en, but also able to rein­vent him­self one more time. His sto­ry is a trib­ute to the pow­er of choice, endurance, and the human will to belong.