Momik, the only child of two survivors, is brought up in Israel by a family seeking to ignore the past. No-one will explain to him what life was like 'Over There' or what the 'Nazi Beast' is. His 9-year-old mind imagines a Nazi Beast hiding in the cellar, waiting to feed on Jews.

Momik increasingly shields himself from all feeling and attachment. But through the stories his great-uncle tells him-the same stories he told the commandant of a Nazi concentration camp-Momik, too, becomes "infected...