Blonde German housewife Erna Petri was returning home after a shopping trip in town when something caught her eye: six small, nearly naked boys huddled in terror by the side of the country road. Married to a senior SS officer, the 23-year-old knew instantly who they were. They must be the Jews she’d heard about — the ones who’d escaped from a train taking them to an extermination camp. But she was a mother herself, with two children of her own. So she humanely took the starving, whimpering youngsters home, calmed them down and gave them food to eat. Then...