Searching for Hugo

In October 1914, Hugo Rosenthal, a Jewish German soldier fighting on the Eastern Front, failed to return to the trenches after a military skirmish near Warsaw and was presumed to have been taken prisoner by the Russians. For the next year, Hugo's family and friends mounted a massive effort to find his whereabouts and bring him home through a prisoner exchange program. They sent hundreds of letters to people as diverse as prisoners in Siberia to the king of Spain. They even recruited a Russian acquaintance to buy the POW's freedom, but Hugo wasn't where he was supposed to be. This suspenseful search for my grandfather is brought back to life through original letters, with their images, German transcriptions, and English translations included. The story culminates in a shocking surprise revelation that had been hidden for almost a century.