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"People didn't just hand you their secrets you had to go hunting for them."

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The Nazis were sending the Jews off to concentration camps. Führer had announced that Berlin was official "Jew-free."

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The Nazis would have book-burning ceremonies where they tossed all the offending books (i.e. the “un-german” books) into a bonfire and sing Nazi songs.

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The Nazis were developing a new kind of airplane, that worked without propellers. It was super fast and they called it Projekt 1065. There are 12 pages of blueprints to it.

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Hendrik Goldsmit was coming to Switzerland to recruit someone at the convention. The Swiss weren’t allowed to let German soldiers in so the Nazis were sending children aka “The Science Team,” to assassinate Goldsmit.

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The setting takes place in Nazi, Germany during World War II.

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"World War II is raging. Michael O’Shaunessey, the son of the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany, lives in war-torn Berlin with his parents. Like the other boys at his school, Michael is a member of the Hitler Youth. But Michael has a secret:

He and his parents are spies.

Michael and his family help downed Allied airmen to safety and send the Allies coded messages with the locations of Nazi factories, but when one of the boys in Michael’s Hitler Youth group shows him the secret plans to Projekt 1065, a prototype Nazi jet plane that could change the course of the war, Michael knows he has to steal the blueprints. To get close to the boy and the blueprints Michael has to go deeper and deeper into the madness of the Hitler Youth, and to do that, he may just have to sacrifice everything—and everyone—he loves."

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Infiltrate. Befriend. Sabotage.
World War II is raging. Michael O'Shaunessey, the son of the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany, lives in war-torn Berlin with his parents. Like the other boys at his school, Michael is a member of the Hitler Youth. But Michael has a secret:

He and his parents are spies.

Michael and his family help downed Allied airmen to safety and send the Allies coded messages with the locations of Nazi factories, but when one of the boys in Michael's Hitler Youth group shows him the secret plans to Projekt 1065, a prototype Nazi jet plane that could change the course of the war, Michael knows he has to steal the blueprints. To get close to the boy and the blueprints Michael has to go deeper and deeper into the madness of the Hitler Youth, and to do that, he may just have to sacrifice everything-and everyone-he loves.

Scholastic | October 2016 | Ages 8 and Up

"Animated, well-researched, and thought-provoking."

-Kirkus - STARRED REVIEW

"A suspenseful mystery that will keep readers on the edge of their seats."

"A high-action spy thriller."

-Booklist

Kirkus Best Middle Grade Books of 2016

Fall 2016 Parents' Choice Gold Award

2018 Georgia Children's Book Award Winner

2017-2018 Vermont Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award Winner

2017-2018 North Carolina Young Adult Book Award Winner

2018-2019 Missouri Truman Award Winner

2019 Wisconsin Golden Archer Award Winner

2019 Wyoming Soaring Eagle Award 1st Runner-Up

2019 Nebraska Golden Sower Award Finalist

2018-2019 Louisiana Young Readers' Choice Award Nominee

2018-2019 Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Book Award Nominee

Dutch Cover Art

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Infiltrate. Befriend. Sabotage. World War II is raging. Michael O'Shaunessey, the son of the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany, lives in war-torn Berlin with his parents. Like the other boys at his school, Michael is a member of the Hitler Youth. But Michael has a secret: He and his parents are spies.

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Alan Gratz was born January 27th, 1972. He has written 16 young adult books and is a "New York Times bestselling author."

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Michael wears a Hitler uniform that includes a brown long-sleeved shirt, black shorts, white knee socks, and black hiking boots because he’s pretending to be a Nazi.

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Nazi school was a joke; mostly spent time doing physical education (i.e. playing games, running races, exercising) and learning about the history of Nazi Party and how to tell German Aryans from “subhumans." Michael’s class was all thirteen year old boys and consisted of forty students. The girls had classes in a different building. The Hitler Youth school consisted of the Jungvolk, the junior Hitler Youth ranks—to the senior Hitler Youth squads when they turn fourteen. They would then graduate from the Hitler Youth into Reich’s Land Service and work for free on a farm in the country for a year. After that, they would fight in war.

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SS/Schutzstaffel; Death’s Head Squad (i.e. had skulls and crossbones on their capes and wore all black).

SRD/Gestapo; The Hitler Youth’s “Patrol Force.” Like junior secret police officers.

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Members of the Junior Hitler Youth Ranks had jobs during air raids. They each had a section of Berlin street that was “theirs.”

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The motto of the Hitler Youth was “We are born to die for Germany.”

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Legend has it that the Blood Banner had been dipped in the blood of the Hitler Youth greatest martyr Herbert "Quex" Norkus, who had been killed by a gang of Communist boys back in the days before the Nazis rule the whole country.

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Michael and Fritz earned their Hitler Youth dagger. They would wear it in a metal sheath on their belt wherever they went. It was a symbol, a badge of honor that said they had made the cut. The handle was black, decorated with the red and white checkerboard diamond with a swastika in the middle. A finger guard curled over one side of the hilt. The blade itself was only six inches long, but it was an inch wide, and engraved on it where the words “BLUT UND EHRE!” (Blood and Honor).

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The “German Look” (i.e. when you talk about something you're not supposed to and you take a look to make sure no one is listening).

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German for “mister.”

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“Lightning War” (Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, France).

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"Subhumans” (Jews, Poles, Russians, Africans).

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“Seat meat” (Means being able to sit through something long and boring, as if you had a big padded butt.)

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Nazi code for Western European white people.

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“Butt bomb” or cannonball in German.

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German for “quicksilver” meaning they were quick.

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“A mess” or chaos/disorganized in German.

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"No one wanted to call attention to themselves. Nobody wanted to stand out. Nobody wanted the Nazis to notice them while outside, so they keep their heads down."

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"Fighting was about all anyone in Germany respected anymore."

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"My parents and I had walked away from the Jewish man in the street that Night of Broken Glass four years ago because we had a bigger mission than one man. But I was right here, right now, and I wasn't the helpless little boy I’d been then, and these boys weren't the Gestapo. Then again, I was supposed to stay invisible. I wasn't supposed to get involved."

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"Fritz dropped to the ground and curled into a ball, the boys kicking him and punching him where he lay, and suddenly I was back in the schoolyard at St. Paul's, in London, and the older boys were kicking me in the legs, the back, the head, their laughter the only thing louder than my crying. I was helpless. Ashamed. Learning the hardest lesson I’d ever learned: When you fell down, it was over."

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“I folded my arms across my chest and stared out the window. No business putting my life on the line for anything. That was exactly what was wrong with Nazi Germany. Some of the Germans must have disagreed with Hitler and the Nazis, but they were afraid that if they said something, did something, they might get shot. Or worse. So instead of anybody doing anything to help anybody else, they kept their eyes on their feet and pretended the sky wasn't falling down on their heads. How could none of them do anything? How could I not?”

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"In Nazi, Germany, every weakness was punished."

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“Sometimes good people have to be sacrificed to win the war.”

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“Down with Hitler! The high command lies! Down with the Nazi beast!”

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“We are born to die for Germany.”

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"Every race in the world can be stored into one of three categories; Culture founders, culture maintainers, and culture destroyers."

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"Boxing was the one thing where you could demonstrate the glorious 'spirit of aggression' and 'overcome your fear of pain' all at once."

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"When at last I stopped, Fritz lay motionless on the ground, completely and totally beaten. All around us was utter silence. I looked up, eyes afire, chest heaving, arms tensed for another fight. Horst took a step back in fear. I had managed to scare the monsters, and when you can scare monsters, you can be sure you’ve become one yourself.”

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"There's a joke in Germany about how dad's in the Army, mom’s in the Nazi Women's League, the son is in the Hitler Youth, and the daughter is in the Bund Deutscher Mädel, and they only get to see each other once a year at the Nazi Party rally."

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Michael and his family are spying on the Nazis while secretly working with the Allied forces even though Ireland’s officially neutral stance in war. Michael’s dad Davin is the “legit side of the business” and his mom Megan is the “clandestine part.” Michael joined the Hitler Youth and is thirteen, Irish with a German accent, has brown hair, and brown eyes. He is the son of the Irish ambassador. Michael and his parents live in Berlin, Germany.

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Michael and his family were caught up in the Kristallnacht (i.e. The Night of Broken Glass). This was a pogrom or massacre against the Jews.

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At the Nazi dinner party, Michael is tasked with finding information about the location of a new engine factory. He finds the information he needs and uses his photographic memory to memorize the location.

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Michael would be graduating from Jungvolk to the senior Hitler Youth a year earlier which gave him the opportunity to gather more information for the Allies. This occurred because the seventeen year old seniors would go directly into the German army because the German Sixth Army was forced to surrender to the Russians at Stalingrad after a six-month siege, a loss of more than 285,000 soldiers.

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A plane with a British pilot was shot down and the Hitler Youth was tasked to find the pilot. Michael was determined to find him and get his parents to bring him home safely. He managed to find the pilot and convinced him to trust him. Michael helped to hide him somewhere he could stay the night and he came back the next day with his parents. They discovered that he was a Jew named Lieutenant Simon Cohen.

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Simon informed Michael and his parents that the Nazis were developing a new kind of airplane, that worked without propellers. It was super fast and they called it Projekt 1065. The Nazis were going to use it to win the war. Later, Fritz showed Michael the blueprints and Michael discovered that Fritz's dad was a part of the planning committee.

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Michael purposely didn’t have friends in school because he wanted to stay unnoticed so he and his family wouldn't be found out. He later befriended Fritz after finding out he had the blueprints in order to get closer to him so that he could memorized them and he and Simon could reconstruct them.

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Michael is scared of heights which can affect missions. It almost prevented him from getting admitted into the SRD but luckily, Fritz pushed him off the high building he was supposed to jump off of for the courage test in order to pass.

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Michael was determined to get into the SRD because Fritz wanted to. Michael needed to stay close to Fritz in order to have access to the blueprints. They helped each other get in and eventually, they made it.

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After Trumbauer put Fritz on a special SRD team, he was never around. He even became more hateful and barely talked to Michael anymore. Whatever it was that Fritz was doing before and after school for the SRD with Max, it was changing him. He was now harder, colder, and meaner. He talked back to her Professor Doktor Major Melcher and he wouldn't have done that before he also wouldn't have lied to Michael before.

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"Math was to engineers what violence was to Nazis. It was their lifeblood. What made everything possible."

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Michael sabotaged the cannons so that no more planes would be shot down by the SRD but Max caught him and confronted him about it. Michael grabbed Max and threatened to hurt him if he didn't give him information about the "Science Team." He eventually caved and told Michael that they were after a scientist named Hendrik Goldsmit. Max managed to get free from Michael's grasp but ended up exploding from a piece of shrapnel before he got a chance to tell the others that Michael was a traitor.

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"Da and Ma had understood, had told me it wasn't my fault. That they had expected too much from me. But that only made it worse. I wanted to be able to handle whatever they asked me to do, and more. I wanted to be better than everybody thought I was. I wanted them to think of me as an adult, not a kid who couldn't cut it.

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Michael and his parents figured out that Hendrik Goldsmit was a Dutch physicist who got out of the Netherlands before Hitler invaded. He now worked for the Americans on their atomic bomb project. Hendrik Goldsmit was coming to Switzerland to recruit someone at the convention. The Swiss weren’t allowed to let German soldiers in so the Nazis were sending children aka “The Science Team,” to assassinate Goldsmit.

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The codename for the Allied plan to recruit or kidnap Nazi scientists to work for the United States

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Simon suggested Michael join the “Science Team” to warn Goldsmit since the conference was in two days. Since Max was killed, they would be looking to replace him on the "Science Team." Michael recalled Max telling him that he had gotten in because he could speak English but so could Michael.

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German for “bureaucratic mildew.” It was the stacks of government paperwork they used to document everything.

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Michael and the SRD met Adolf Hitler the Führer in person.

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“Hitler looked out over us. Now each and every one of us really was standing as straight and tall as we could get. Even me. I needed to blend in, it was true, but there was something about the man that made you want to appear perfect in his eyes. Maybe it was fear.”

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“A tingle thrilled through me, despite how much I hated him. To hear someone tell you that you will rebuild the world, that you will be a hero, a man-god, was a powerful thing. I wanted to do all that. To be all that. Just not for Hitler and the Nazis."

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“Learn, while you are still young, that life for you must mean sacrifice: sacrifice of your personal freedom, sacrifice of your free time, sacrifice of many of the small pleasures of life. To do so, you must be violently active. Dominating, Intrepid. Brutal. You must be indifferent to pain. There must be no weakness in you. No tenderness. You must learn to do without, to endure criticism and Injustice, to be reliable, discreet, decent, and loyal. You must be as swift as greyhounds. Tough as leather. As hard as Krupp Steel!”

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"I realized that Hitler didn't say anything about being smart. Intelligence had no place in the Hitler Youth. Or in Nazi Germany, for that matter."

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Michael realized that the only reason Fritz, Horst, Ottmar, Erhard, and Max made it onto the “Science Team” and he didn’t, was because he wasn't as passionate or fanatic about Hitler as they were. Michael realized that he had to make them believe he was a zealot but didn't know how. Simon told Michael that the solution was to turn him in so they would trust him. If Simon was turned in, it would also send Michael's parents on the run.

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Michael had just revealed to Fritz that him and his family were spies and were planning to turn them in.

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“We were just thirteen, me and Fritz, but we didn't look like boys anymore. Nazi Germany, the war, the Hitler Youth-- all of it had made us into men. Not ‘man-gods’ as Hitler had said, but boy-men. Boys who's inside, whose hearts and minds and souls, had been forced to grow up faster than our bodies. The war had made us men, and it was time to act like it.”

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Michael gave Horst a beating and now there would be another opening in the "Science Team."

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German for "footgoers."

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Simon had been turned in and Michael's parents had been on the run. Simon and Michael put on an act to convince the Trumbauer that Michael was on his side even though he was hurting on the inside. Simon told one last joke to Michael and then tried to escape but was shot and died. Michael realized that Simon had planned this. If they had taken him alive, he would've been tortured and he might have revealed the plans of Projekt 1065 and Michael to them. He had died to protect Michael and his mission. Michael got on to the "Science Team" but he gave up everything he cared about.

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A "waiting snake" or long line in German.

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“Simon had meant to do this all along, I realized. As soon as he'd suggested I turn him in, he’d planned to get shot. To die trying to escape rather than be taken alive by the Nazis. He knew what was to come, even if he pretended it didn't matter. If they took him alive, they would torture him, and eventually he’d tell them about stealing the plans for Projekt 1065. Maybe even tell them about me, and how I had helped him. He’d died to protect me, to protect his mission. Committed suicide by Nazi. Now they couldn't torture Simon Cohen, and he couldn't reveal any secrets. Because Simon Cohen was dead.”

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"That which doesn't destroy us makes us stronger."

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“I couldn't believe it. They were just going to let us through? Because we were children? It was just like Ma had told me: Women and children make terrific spies, because people always underestimate us. So this was why the Nazis sent boys to do the work of men. Did no one else have any idea what monsters the Hitler Youth were? What we were capable of? What we had been training to do since we were ten? They didn't even take our daggers from us!”

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The “Science Team” were planning on killing all the scientists, not just Goldsmit, with a bomb. There needed to be four members so that each person could carry in a suitcase full of random supplies that way if there were checked, the guards wouldn't be suspicious. The pieces inside each case, were pieces that could be assembled into a bomb.

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The “Science Team” were planning on killing all the scientists, not just Goldsmit, with a bomb. There needed to be four members so that each person could carry in a suitcase full of random supplies that way if there were checked, the guards wouldn't be suspicious. The pieces inside each case, were pieces that could be assembled into a bomb.

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Michael realize that the "Science Team" had tricked him. They had knew all along that he was a traitor and set him up. Michael was told that Ottmar and Erhard had had the bomb but turns out Fritz was the one who had it. They only told Michael they had it because they knew that Michael was a traitor. Turns out when Michael told the guard, Ottmar and Erhard's suitcase had clothing in it.

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The "Science Team" had tricked Michael. They had knew all along that he was a traitor and set him up. They told him that Ottmar and Erhard had had the bomb but turns out Fritz was the one who had it. They only told Michael they had it because they knew that Michael was a traitor. Turns out when Michael told the guard, Ottmar and Erhard's suitcase had clothing in it.

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Michael found Goldsmit and told him about the plans of the “Science Team.” Ottmar then tackled Goldsmit and almost killed him but Michael intervened and as Ottmar was about to slit Michael’s throat, he grabbed his dagger and whipped it up into the side of Ottmar’s head.

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Michael had gone to retrieve the plans for Projekt 1065 that he had hid inside the loose stone wall. When he removed the block, the plans were gone. He realized that when Fritz almost caught him, he actually had caught him and didn't say anything. Fritz had told the others about this and they took the plans.

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“‘You did that for me Michael. You made me stronger. You taught me how to fight back. Maybe that's why I keep saving you. Because you saved me.’

‘Made you into a monster, you mean.’

‘Fritz frowned. ‘Is the wolf a monster for eating the rabbit? Is the hawk a monster for eating the mouse? All life is struggle, Michael. He who wants to live should fight for himself. He who doesn't fight doesn't deserve to live.’”

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“‘I should be mad at you, but I'm not,’ Fritz said. ‘I respect you for what you did. You're fighting for what you believe in! There's honor in that, even if you're wrong.’”

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“There's honor in a fair fight, in not killing your enemies when they can't fight back. Not murdering them.”

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Fritz was on top of the cable car Michael and Goldsmit were on. He had put the dagger through the roof so he wouldn't fall off. Michael said that Fritz had had the bomb on him and was going to blow them up. Goldmit told Michael that he wouldn't because he would die too but Michael told him about Germany's motto “We are born to die for Germany.” The Goldsmit told Michael that one of them would have to go onto the roof and stop him. Goldsmit couldn't fit through the window so Michael would have to do it which meant that Michael would have to face his fear of heights. Michael started telling jokes and remembered Simon would have wanted him to died trying rather than to just die. He realized that in order to save Goldsmit, he would have to do it. So he hauled himself out the window. And he did it for Ireland.

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Fritz had saved Michael from falling off the cable car when his fear took over because Fritz felt like he owed him. Michael tried convincing Fritz not to activate the bomb but he had already done so.

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Fritz and Michael fought over the suitcase with the bomb. Michael had taught Fritz how to fight, but he still wasn't good enough to beat Michael. Michael punch him in the nose and slashed a dagger at his arm. He let go of the suitcase and grabbed his arm in pain. The suitcase fell to the edge of the cable car and Michael and Fritz both went to grab it. This knocked the suitcase off the cable car causing it to tumble to the ground. Not long after, the bomb exploded and created an avalanche. The Avalanche hit their cable car but Michael held on. Fritz didn't.

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“But the war that was being fought just outside the borders of Switzerland and just across the Celtic Sea from Ireland wasn’t just a war between the Axis and Allies. It was a world war, and the fate of every nation on Earth, neutral or not, lay in the balance. When the war was over, the world would be ruled one way, or the other--by freedom or fascism, by hope or by fear, I had seen the depths, the lengths, the Nazis would go to win that war, sacrificing their own children to the cause, and I also knew firsthand the sacrifices the Allies had made to stop them.”

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“Whether they wanted them to or not, Simon and the Allies were fighting to save the world for Switzerland too. And Ireland. What right did the Swiss, the Irish, the Spanish-- anyone-- have to sit out the fight for the fate of the world when they too would live or die by the result?”

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After the Avalanche, Michael and Goldsmit boarded a train to the Irish Embassy. After a little while, they made it, and Michael's parents were there. Michael and Chief Technician Ross worked on reconstructing the plans for Projekt 1065.

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“Fly thing” or airplane in German.

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Michael and his family were going to move to America and he had asked Agent Faulkner when he would meet Mr. Churchill to get his medal and reward(s) for what he had accomplished. Agent Faulkner informed him that he couldn't tell anyone about what he and his family had done because it would be obvious that they have had and still do have Irish agents "working for Hitler" who are actually moles. Michael and his family were part of the Official Secrets Act and if they said anything, the penalty would be imprisonment.

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“I huffed. It wasn't enough. I wanted the world to know what I’d done. What Ma and Da had done. But then I remembered riding on the train through Switzerland with Goldsmit, feeling bitter about Ireland’s neutrality in the war. The truth was, Ireland wasn't sitting on the sidelines. We had done something. We were just fighting in a different way. Even though nobody would ever know what I’d done, what my ma and da had done, what Ireland had done, we’d stood up to Hitler and the Nazis with the rest of the Allies. We'd fought for freedom too.”

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Alan Gratz's best seller is Refugee. Refugee has been on New York's top selling books for over two years.