If you were on a train bound for Auschwitz during the height of Nazi power, how would you escape? 

Less than 100 years ago, a Jewish woman did manage to escape a train bound for Auschwitz. Her name was Francois Frenkel. Francois had always wanted to own a bookshop, and by 1921 had set up the first French-language bookshop in Berlin, but everything changed once Nazism took hold of the country.

Stephanie Smee is the translator of Francois Frenkel’s compelling story, ‘No Place to Lay One’s Head’ originally published in 1945.