Sage Singer attends a grief therapy group and meets Josef Weber, a quiet 95-year-old German man who writes in a black journal.

Josef Weber becomes a regular at the Our Daily Bread bakery and slowly forms a close friendship with Sage.

A face of Jesus appears baked into a loaf of bread at the bakery, triggering a media frenzy.

Josef shows Sage a photo of himself in an SS uniform and confesses that he was a Nazi guard during WWII.

Sage reports Josef's confession to local police, but the attending detective dismisses the claim as unbelievable.

War crimes prosecutor Leo Stein receives Sage's call but finds no record in his files of any Nazi named Josef Weber.

Josef reveals his real name is Reiner Hartmann, which Leo confirms matches a known Auschwitz guard.

Minka gives Sage a notebook containing her handwritten Ania story, saying that writing it kept her alive.

Leo visits Sage in Westerbrook and explains they need an eyewitness or insider confession to prosecute Josef for murder.

Minka picks Reiner Hartmann out of a photo lineup and reveals unpublished case details that confirm her identification.

Josef Weber is admitted to a hospital after attempting to take his own life.

At the hospital, Josef reveals he originally planned to ask Sage's mother for forgiveness before she died.

Sage takes Josef's hand in the hospital and agrees to help him die.

Wearing a hidden recording device, Sage records Josef's detailed confession about shooting Darija and wanting to kill Minka.

Sage discovers Josef's hospital bracelet shows a blood type that does not match Reiner Hartmann's file, revealing he was actually Franz.

Sage Singer, a reclusive baker scarred by her mother's death, meets Josef Weber at a grief group and befriends him — only for him to confess that he is a former Nazi and beg her to help him die. Sage contacts war crimes prosecutor Leo Stein, and together they persuade Sage's grandmother Minka, a Holocaust survivor, to formally identify Josef as the Auschwitz guard who murdered her best friend Darija. After Josef survives a suicide attempt, Sage visits him in the hospital and agrees to grant his death wish. She records a damning confession while wearing a wire, then bakes a poisoned crown roll that kills Josef in his own home. In the aftermath, a discrepancy in blood type reveals the devastating truth: the man she killed was not the brutal Reiner Hartmann but his brother Franz, who had once saved Minka's life.

The story of Sage Singer and the secret that changes everything.

Sage Singer works the night shift at a small bakery and carries on a secret affair with a married funeral director named Adam.

Sage visits her grandmother Minka and learns for the first time that Minka's father was a baker in the Polish village of Łódź.

Minka narrates her teenage years in Poland, describing a carefree friendship with Darija before the Nazi occupation reached their town.

A date between young Minka and Josek is cut short when SS soldiers open fire inside the café, killing dozens.

Wehrmacht soldiers evict Minka's family from their home and force them into the crowded Litzmannstadt Jewish Ghetto.

Baby Majer is accidentally smothered while being hidden from soldiers, and his mother Basia takes her own life in grief.

Minka and her father board a train to Auschwitz; upon arrival, her father is sorted to the left and taken away.

Minka is shaved and branded with prisoner number A14660 at Auschwitz, then discovers that Darija is already in the barracks.

While sorting belongings at the crematorium, Minka finds her father's suitcase and realizes her entire family is dead.

A bunk inspection at Auschwitz uncovers Minka's written story and hidden photographs, and she is sent to be punished.

The SS officer Minka calls Herr Dybbuk, revealed to be Franz Hartmann, employs her as his secretary in exchange for installments of her story.

Reiner Hartmann catches Minka and Darija witnessing his theft from Franz's safe and shoots Darija dead.

Franz beats Minka severely to satisfy Reiner, then transfers her to Neusalz camp with a note reading 'WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?'

Minka escapes a death march through the woods, survives to Bergen-Belsen, and is liberated by Allied soldiers.

Minka Singer dies peacefully in her sleep shortly after sharing her full Holocaust testimony with Sage and Leo.

While Sage navigates her guilt-laden life in Westerbrook, the parallel story of her grandmother Minka unfolds across decades of devastating loss and unlikely survival. Minka grows up in Łódź with her baker father and sister Basia, but the Nazi occupation strips away her family one by one — through massacre, starvation, and suicide — before she is deported to Auschwitz. At the camp, Minka survives by continuing to write her Ania story, which earns her the dangerous protection of an SS officer named Franz Hartmann after a bunk inspection exposes her writing. After the violent murder of her best friend Darija, Minka is transferred to Neusalz and ultimately survives the Holocaust by escaping a death march and being liberated at Bergen-Belsen. Decades later, Minka finally breaks her long silence to share her testimony with Sage and Leo, and dies peacefully soon after, as though telling her story was the last thing tethering her to the world.

Minka's journey from a Polish village to Auschwitz and beyond.

As a child, Sage accidentally catches a glimpse of the Auschwitz identification number tattooed on Minka's wrist.

Young Josef joins the Hitler Youth as a struggling adolescent and experiences praise and belonging for the first time.

Josef participates in Kristallnacht, attacking the neighborhood of his brother Franz's Jewish friend Artur.

After being caught with his commanding officer's girlfriend, Josef is transferred to the Eastern Front, where he is shot and permanently injured.

After recovering from his wound, Josef is reassigned to oversee the women's camp at Auschwitz and finds Franz already stationed there.

Sage raises the question at the grief group of whether horrible people deserve to be mourned, publicly infuriating Josef.

Leo explains the Jewish concept of teshuvah to Sage and argues that Josef cannot have earned genuine forgiveness.

Minka refuses to discuss her past until Leo shares an emotional account of visiting Dachau with his father.

After reading Minka's account of Josef's crimes at Auschwitz, Sage confronts Josef and tells him he doesn't deserve to die on his own terms.

Leo brings Sage to a Friday night synagogue service where the familiar music moves her to tears and reconnects her to her heritage.

Adam confesses his love and proposes to Sage after her grandmother's death; she rejects him and ends the relationship.

Sage finally tells Leo the full story of the car accident that caused her mother's death.

Josef tells Sage that his true worst act was watching his brother Franz choke to death on a cherry pit without intervening.

Rifling through Josef's belongings, Sage finds his black leather journal filled with dozens of alternate endings to the Ania story.

When Leo asks if she found anything important, Sage looks him in the eye and shakes her head.

The novel's deepest moral questions are answered through a series of pivotal decisions and discoveries, beginning with Josef's indoctrination into the Hitler Youth and his slow path toward becoming a Nazi officer at Auschwitz. In the present day, Sage's confrontations with Josef and her conversations with Leo push her to reckon with the meaning of forgiveness, justice, and her long-abandoned Jewish identity. Minka's willingness to finally speak unlocks the truth about Josef's crimes and the impossible moral landscape she witnessed at Auschwitz. Sage's growing relationship with Leo opens old wounds, leading her to confess the truth about her mother's death for the very first time. Josef's final confession reveals a moral ambiguity that persists beyond his death, as Sage discovers the journal that exposes his true identity and chooses to lie to Leo rather than let the truth destroy everything she has worked to build.