Erfurt, Germany in 1944 is a quiet place. And everyone has their part to play in the war effort. This is the story of one young man who could not. This is the story of Ernst, a young German man who gets his first job working at the prestigious firm of Topf & Sons. It's a desperate time and good work is rare, so when this opportunity arrives, he is grateful for it and beholden to the men in the tailored suits who sport their allegiance to the party with pride. This job represents a chance for him to support his beautiful wife Etta, and build a home in the beautiful town of Erfurt. But what starts as a draftsman post quickly escalates into a role working on the designs for an oven that has a capability that has never yet been asked for. The client that Topf & Sons work for? The SS. And the story Ernst is told? That a typhus epidemic has caused this need for this new equipment. A brutal and brilliant entry into a life we shudder to examine, a novel that charts the rise of a young man held in the grasp of denial who must awaken to the reality of the genocide he has a hand in.