Citizen 865 cover

Citizen 865

by Debbie Cenziper

In the tiny Polish village of Trawniki, the SS set up a school for mass murder and then recruited a roving army of foot soldiers, 5,000 men strong, to help annihilate the Jewish population of occupied Poland. After the war, some of these men vanished, making their way to the U.S. and blending into communities across America. In 1990, in a drafty basement archive in Prague, two American historians discovered a Nazi roster from 1945. The long-forgotten document, containing more than 700 names, helped unravel the details behind the "Trawniki Men" who had spent years hiding in plain sight, their terrible secrets intact. Cenziper chronicles how a tenacious team of prosecutors and historians pursued these men and, up against the forces of time and political opposition, battled to the present day to remove them from U.S. soil. -- adapted from jacket

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?