The Traitor's Daughter: Captured by the Nazis, Pursued by the KGB, My Mother's Odyssey to Freedom from Her Secret Past

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Exquisite.... Rarely has there been a more powerful account of the 20th century’s horrors.” —Rosemary Sullivan, author of Stalin’s Daughter

The masterful narration of a daughter's decades-long quest to understand her extraordinary mother, who was born in Lenin's Soviet Union, served as a combat soldier in the Red Army, and endured three years of Nazi captivity—but never revealed her darkest secrets.

As a child, Roxana Spicer would sometimes wake to the sound of the Red Army choir. She would tip-toe downstairs to find her mother, cigarette in one hand and Black Russian in the other, singing along. Roxana would keep her company, and wonder....

Everyone in their village knew Agnes Spicer was Russian, that she had been a captive of the Nazis. And that was all they knew, because Agnes kept her secrets close: how she managed to escape Germany, what the tattoo on her arm meant, even her real name.

Discovering the truth about her beloved, charismatic, volatile mother became Roxana's obsession. Throughout her career as a journalist and documentarian, she took every chance to visit the few places that she knew played a role in her mother's story: Bad Salzuflen, Germany; notorious concentration camps; and Russia. Under Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the early years of Putin, she was able to find people, places, and documents that are now—perhaps forever—lost again.

The Traitor's Daughter is intimate and exhaustively researched, vividly conversational, and shot through with Agnes Spicer's irrepressible, fiery personality. It is a true labour of love as well as a triumph of blending personal biography with sweeping history.