Out of the Ashes

Name: Out of the Ashes
Rating: 4.5 (92 reviews)

by Peter Darman Book 2 in the Redemption series.

First published 2025

Amazon

4.3(92)

Set in Europe in 1945 and Palestine in 1947–1948, culminating in the first Arab–Israeli war, in the dying days of the Second World War, amid the ruins of a collapsing Third Reich, two lives briefly intersect – Hannah Katz, a Hungarian Jew who has survived the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, and Axel Steiner, a former Waffen-SS soldier shattered by guilt and disillusionment. Their meeting is fleeting, but it bonds them both together forever.
Over two years later their paths cross again, this time in Palestine, a land on the brink of transformation. As Jewish refugees pour into a country ready to be reborn, Hannah and Axel find themselves drawn together once more, their shared past an open wound but also a bridge between two worlds.
When war erupts in 1948 and Israel fights for its very existence, Hannah and Axel are thrust into the heart of the struggle. Amid the chaos and the bloodshed, they must confront their deepest fears, their loyalties and the eternal quest for freedom.
From the ashes of Europe to the birth of a nation, their love takes root in blood and hope, a defiance of history itself.
Out of the Ashes is an epic story of survival, redemption and love tested in the crucible of war. It is also a testament to the human spirit’s ability to survive, even in the darkest moments.

The story then moves into the post-war displacement of Jewish survivors and the final crisis of the British Mandate in Palestine. The declaration of Israel in May 1948 was followed immediately by war with neighbouring Arab states. Hannah and Axel therefore carry the moral damage of Europe into a new conflict in which refugees, underground movements, new armies and competing national claims reshape their lives.

The two novels concentrate on people forced to live with the moral consequences of mass violence after the battlefield itself has moved on. Military survival, Jewish displacement, guilt and the possibility of forgiveness remain personal questions even as the setting shifts from the ruins of the Third Reich to the creation of Israel.