In 1944, 13-year-old Fritz Tubach was almost old enough to join the Hitler Youth in his German village of Kleinheubach. That same year in Tab, Hungary, 12-year-old Bernie Rosner was loaded onto a train with the rest of the village’s Jewish inhabitants and taken to Auschwitz, where his whole family was murdered. Many years later, after enjoying successful lives in California, they met, became friends, and decided to share their intimate story—that of two boys trapped in evil and destructive times, who became men with the freedom to construct their own future, with each other and the world. In a new epilogue, the authors share how the publication of the book changed their lives and the lives of the countless people they have met as a result of publishing their story.

Bernat Rosner is retired General Counsel of the Safeway Corporation in Oakland, California. Frederic C. Tubach is Professor Emeritus of German at the University of California, Berkeley. Sally Patterson Tubach is the author of Memoirs of a Terrorist.

“[A] remarkable book.”—Jewish Jrnl of S.florida

"A fine book and a significant contribution to the massive literature of the Holocaust."—Washington Post Book World

"An authentic, poignant account of two very different lives during the Nazi regime, with all the horrors, small triumphs, and unexpected kindnesses distilled into a compelling, tightly woven tale."—Washington Times

"I was very touched by the story beautifully told in An Uncommon Friendship. The pain and suffering brought on by the Holocaust is described in a riveting way. The book shows how a chance meeting followed by a deep friendship can lead to compassion, forgiveness, and understanding on a deeply personal level."—Barbara Boxer, United States Senator

"Fritz Tubach and Bernat Rosner perfectly link the abstract horror of the Nazi death machine with the harmless-seeming, rural somnolence of European village life in the '30s. An Uncommon Friendship is tangible, real, heart-breaking, awesome. This double memoir of a German youth and the Hungarian-Jewish youth he befriended in later life is absolutely unique and stunningly beautiful."—Carolyn See, author of The Handyman

"I read, admired and was gripped by the counterpoint memoirs of Bernie Rosner, a Hungarian-born survivor of Auschwitz and Mauthausen, and Fritz Tubach, the son of a Nazi German army officer. Factual, measured, unemphatic, sharply evocative, their linked stories prove extraordinarily moving. An original document not to be missed and an absorbing read."—Eugen Weber, author of The Hollow Years

Named one of the ten "most winning books of 2001" by Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
Bruno Brand Tolerance Book Award, Simon Wiesanthal Center