Arthur Schaller was only 11 years old when the German army swept through Poland in 1939. Along with his family and every other Jew in Warsaw, Schaller was herded into the ghetto where he learned survival skills by working on the black market.

Three years later, he escaped. His mother had already been deported and he never saw any of his close family again. Changing his name and living on his wits, he worked as a cowherd for local farmers until Poland was liberated by the Russians in 1944. Whenever he felt suspicions growing too strong Schaller moved on. On the horizon he watched the smoke rise from the ruins of the ghetto as the last Jews rose in a hopeless gesture of rebellion and defiance.

Schaller’s wartime experiences alternate between periods of pastoral idyll when he feels almost secure, and times of fear-stricken flight, when his secret identity is almost revealed. (The hundred cigarettes and bottle of vodka of the title refer to the German reward for betraying a Jew in hiding in Nazi-occupied Poland.) Drawing strength from memories of his family and a passionate love of music, Schaller survives the war and, ironically, becomes a valued trade link between the retreating German army and the local civilian population.

The author never witnessed the crematoria, yet the chimneys are there, behind everything, he says, adding a terrible poignancy to his tale. Even the simplest activity is fraught with danger. For example, a casual swim in the local pond is witnessed and Schaller is forced to flee rather than risk discovery and deportation.

Schaller writes vividly about his early years, the ghetto, his secret life, and his search for his family after the war. We relive his experiences with him and, in doing so, derive some small sense of how the horrors of the time scarred everyone they touched. This is a very human document with little overt frightfulness, yet it creates a sense of the time more readily accessible to everyone than many more horrifying works. It has taken Schaller 40 years of a safe, stable life in Canada to come to terms with his past and write this riveting story. It has been worth the wait.