The really terrifying thing, which makes up the woof and warp of this story, is the way that Rumkowski’s abuse of power only differed on the level of scale from the abuses that the residents of the ghetto heaped on each other, prompted by greed, selfishness, hunger, fear, and foolishness. Adults wait around to steal sacks of coal splinters that malnourished children struggle to dig from packed earth in the freezing Polish winter; people turn their neighbours in to the police because it makes them feel important; a man sells his sister into sexual slavery to stave off his own deportation.