Between These Walls: A Gripping Journey Through History’s Darkest Corridors

December 18, 2025 Luka Hill

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 refuses to release its grip on the reader’s heart and mind. It is a testament to the power of memory and the enduring human spirit that perseveres even in the face of unimaginable darkness.

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 will 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. The package becomes a key not just to a physical mystery but to unlocking the hidden chambers of his own identity and the forgotten histories of three families whose fates became inexorably intertwined during the most turbulent periods of the twentieth century.

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 stumbles 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.

As Daniel delves deeper into the contents of the package, readers are transported back to an era when the world stood at the precipice of unprecedented change. 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, creating a reading experience that is both educational and deeply moving.

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 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

The creation of Between These Walls represents one of the most remarkable publishing journeys in recent historical fiction. What sets this novel apart is not just its ambitious scope or intricate plotting, but the authentic passion that courses through every page. Michael Newman did not write this book from a position of academic distance; in fact, he wrote it from the heart, drawing upon a lifetime of personal connection to the events portrayed within its pages.

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. These small memorials sparked profound questions: who lived in those Jewish homes now, and how did they come to possess them? 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’ couldn’t ring truer.”

The book’s website features a compelling gallery of images from Newman’s travels, including photographs of historical documents, the actual locations featured in the story, and pictures of his father, which serve as visual artifacts bridging fiction and lived reality. These elements remind readers that while Between These Walls is a work of fiction, it is rooted in actual events and places, in real suffering and real courage.

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. These were not abstract historical facts for Newman. They were the foundation of his existence, the shadows that shaped his childhood, and the legacy he carried into adulthood.

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. These experiences of displacement, of being uprooted from one’s homeland, inform every page of his novel.

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. As an adult, he returned many times to Hungary and Austria with his parents, emotionally moving experiences every time. He has since taken his wife, three children, and one granddaughter on trips to Mauthausen, ensuring that the next generation never forgets.

Newman’s commitment to authenticity extended beyond family testimony and historical sites. 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, which indeed is a daring journey without telling his family. 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, which garnered coverage from both the National Post and the Toronto Star, 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 serving as a reminder that we must never forget what happened, and never stop searching for truth. 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,” happy and fulfilled with where his decision to write novels continues to take him. 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.

(Author Michael Newman, his wife Dixie, and their beloved Morkie, Mia.)

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, a testament to its powerful storytelling and historical significance. 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. Good use of detail made some of the settings especially rich. Themes of personal history, heritage, and how to cope with the sins of one’s previous generations were well developed, and dealt with very sensitively.”

The critical response has been equally impressive and remarkably consistent in its praise. Kirkus Reviews lauded the novel’s meticulous research and educational value: “The historical authenticity of the work is admirable; the author’s research is scrupulously rigorous, and much of the book is enjoyably edifying, as it offers a peek into several tumultuous conflicts in the 20th century.”

BookLife offered high praise for Newman’s narrative craftsmanship: “Each narrative is richly drawn, revealing the characters’ emotions and motivations while adding the perfect amount of historical background to make their experiences believable and real. The even pacing continues throughout the novel, conveying an undercurrent of suspense that develops to a stunning conclusion. This powerful novel will enthrall any reader of historical suspense fiction.”

Pipeline Media Group highlighted the ambitious scope of the work: “Between These Walls is an incredibly ambitious novel and feels very well-researched,” while BookLife concluded with an enthusiastic recommendation: “Fans of WWII fiction will not want to miss this gripping story, which brims with authenticity and suspense.”

Reader reviews have been equally enthusiastic, with many describing the novel as a “tapestry of historical fiction” and praising Newman’s ability to weave together seemingly unrelated threads into a cohesive and compelling narrative. Multiple reviewers have noted the book’s “next level” historical detail, the “relentless” twists, and the way Newman “nails the dual timeline storytelling.” As one reader observed, “You’re not just reading about war and espionage—you’re in the trenches, navigating Cold War politics, dodging double agents, and questioning everyone’s motives.”

(Michael Newman presenting a copy of his novel to Mosab Hassan Yousef, also known as the Green Prince and Son of Hamas at a Jewish National Fund event in Toronto in 2025.)

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 behind various acts consisting of 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.

In an era when historical memory sometimes feels like it is fading, when the survivors of the Holocaust grow fewer with each passing year, Newman’s work serves as both a memorial and a warning. It reminds us that the walls we build, whether physical, emotional, or historical, may hide truths that we ignore at our peril. The book also addresses the not-so-often-acknowledged sad reality of Nazis in hiding in Latin America, where they managed to lead active lives after the end of World War II, adding another layer of complexity to our understanding of justice and accountability.

The thriller elements woven throughout the narrative ensure that Between These Walls is not simply an important book, but an undeniable one. Newman has crafted a page-turner that educates even as it entertains, that enlightens even as it thrills. The story spans several continents, with much of the action set in Germany, the Middle East, and Paraguay, creating a truly global perspective on the events of the twentieth century. Readers will find themselves racing through chapters, desperate to discover what happens next, only to pause and reflect on the profound questions the story raises.

As BookLife notes in its review: “In Between These Walls, Newman delivers a multi-layered historical saga centered on New York Jewish art curator Daniel Singer, whose search for his past pulls him into the murky depths of World War 2’s legacy, espionage, and personal secrets. Singer’s journey becomes a masterful exploration of truth, resilience, and the costs of confronting the past.”

Discover the Truth Behind the Walls

Between These Walls is available for purchase through multiple platforms, making it accessible to readers worldwide. Whether you prefer the convenience of digital reading or the tactile experience of a physical book, you can begin your journey through history’s hidden corridors today. The novel is available in both paperback and Kindle editions, ensuring that this important story can reach the widest possible audience.

Purchase Links:

For more information about Michael Newman, his travels to the locations featured in the book, historical photographs, and updates on the forthcoming sequel A Daughter’s Revenge, visit: Michael Newman Official Website