This is not your average gypsy story. Rather, this tale is about the authentic European Gypsies of Romany, nomadic farm workers caught up in Hitler’s reign of terror as he strove to purge the impure from his homeland. Beginning in 1927 in the Moravian countryside, where an infant is born in a dilapidated barn, the gypsies are slowly forced into a census program -- a method of tracking their movement that ends in a mass assignment to an all-gypsy labor camp.

Although much has been written about the Nazi death camps, Fires in the Dark specifically addresses the decimation of the Gypsy population of Eastern Europe. The story follows a number of families, one in particular, as the novel chronicles the gradual movement of fascism across the country, beginning with mandatory registration and specific “rules” that govern the gypsies’ mobility.

I found the book a bit tedious in the beginning though it picked up the pace when the focus of the book centres on one character and his survival of the war. Although a fiction it would have been nice to have a bibliography of the research and a glossary of Romany terms and language. ( )

The story of a group of Czech Roms during the 2nd World War. This is an insightful look at Rom life during a time of persecution, starvation and concentration camps. An excellent although painful read...

This story was interesting because it allowed me to see the Holocaust from the perspective of a gypsy family. It is well written but at some point the pace slows down considerably. Nice imagery. ( )