By: Paul White
History has a way of hiding its deepest secrets behind closed doors and within silent walls. Some stories remain buried for decades, waiting for the right moment to emerge and demand to be told. Between These Walls is not merely a work of historical fiction but a profound exploration of identity, survival, and the unbreakable bonds that connect generations across time and tragedy. Written by Michael Newman, this compelling narrative weaves together threads of war, persecution, and redemption into a tapestry that seeks to captivate the reader’s heart and mind.
A Tale Woven from Three Families
In the summer of 1988, New York art curator Daniel Singer receives a mysterious package from West Berlin, sealed with security tape that may 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 comes 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 may 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.
A Labor of Love Rooted in Personal History
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’ seem more urgent than ever.”
The book’s website features a compelling gallery of images from Newman’s travels, including photographs of historical documents and the actual locations featured in the story.
The Author Behind the Words
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.
Critical Acclaim and Distinguished Recognition
Between These Walls has garnered significant recognition from the literary community and continues to win the hearts of readers worldwide. The book was honored as a Distinguished Favorite in Historical Fiction at the prestigious 2020 NYC Big Book Award. It has also received recognition from the Whistler Independent Book Awards, which praised it as a “good, unique and worthwhile book,” noting that “the different times and places over which the story takes place were well realized and distinct.”
Kirkus Reviews lauded the novel’s meticulous research: “The historical authenticity of the work is admirable; the author’s research is scrupulously rigorous, and much of the book is enjoyably edifying.”
BookLife offered high praise: “Each narrative is richly drawn, revealing the characters’ emotions and motivations while adding the perfect amount of historical background. This powerful novel will likely appeal to any reader of historical suspense fiction.”
Reader reviews have been equally enthusiastic, with many noting the book’s “next level” historical detail, “relentless” twists, and praising how Newman “nails the dual timeline storytelling.”
More Than Historical Fiction: A Mirror to Our Times
What sets Between These Walls apart is its refusal to treat history as a distant, academic subject. Newman understands that history is not made of dates and events, but of people. Real people with families, dreams, fears, and impossible choices. The three families at the center of this narrative, one American and two German, could be any families, which is precisely what makes their story so powerful and so necessary.
The novel explores themes that remain painfully relevant: the nature of identity, the cost of survival, the weight of secrets, and the possibility of redemption. Newman offers nuanced portrayals of various characters rather than flat depictions in black and white, thus illustrating the complexity of acts that are both heroic and heinous. The title itself references the hiding space occupied by the members of one family for nearly a year and a half, a powerful metaphor for the walls we build to protect ourselves and the walls that imprison us.
Discover the Truth Behind the Walls
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.
Links:
For more information about Michael Newman, updates on the forthcoming sequel A Daughter’s Revenge, visit: Michael Newman Official Website.
