The Gypsy Synagogue
Russian Front, 1942. Major Martin Bora, an intelligence officer in the German Army, is readying for the last push toward the city of Stalingrad when he receives the unexpected order to locate the whereabouts of a civilian couple. Both renowned scientists, the husband-and-wife team vanished over the steppe while flying to the headquarters of General Paulus, Commander-in-Chief of the Sixth Army.
Bora joins the search team, only to discover shortly thereafter that the two have been murdered. The macabre find exacerbates rivalries brewing among the Allies of the Third Reich. Rumanians, Italians, Hungarians, Cossacks blame one another for the crime, but are unable to identify a credible motive, much less to put forward the name of a possible culprit.
Before long, the quickening pace of war interrupts Bora’s inquiry. What follows is the bloody struggle for Stalingrad, fierce house-to-house combat, and the eventual reversal of fortune as besieged and their German invaders switch roles. A few months later Bora is under siege inside the city, even as the German General Staff prepares to capitulate under the onslaught of the Red Army. Only a perilous plan to disengage in the dead of winter can help him escape capture. Bora leads a handful of his men across 400 kilometers behind enemy lines, dodging perils of all sorts in an ever more hallucinating odyssey. When at last the few survivors stagger to safety, it becomes surprisingly clear that Major Bora has never forgotten the case of the Rumanian scientists.
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