When the grey bus came to take Rainor Schacht and his friends in the ward for disabled children to a remote hospital called Trutzburg, they had no idea what dark reality awaited them.

No one would tell them what to expect — not Nurse Hilde; not Peter Berger, the kind bus driver; not Dr. Lutz, who ran the Nazi hospital with ruthless efficiency.

Years later, with Berger’s coded diary in hand, Rainor sets out to find Emmi, a fellow survivor of Trutzburg, who looked past Rainor’s disfigurement and elicited the magic that gave purpose to Rainor and solace to Emmi and the other children.

Set against the backdrop of the Second World War, Andrew Boden’s When We Were Ashes takes us to the chilling depths of Aktion T4, one of the darkest chapters in the history of Nazi Germany. In this hauntingly poignant novel, Rainor is led on an illuminating journey to learn the truth about his past and the even more extraordinary truth about his present.