Trudi Alexy was born in Romania to a thoroughly assimilated Jewish family. After fleeing from Prague to Paris in 1938 to escape the Nazis, they hid in Fascist Spain as hastily baptized Catholics before immigrating to America. Although torn by guilt over surviving the Holocaust 'by fraud" while living in Barcelona, eleven-year-old Alexy fell under the spell of Catholic rituals and promise of forgiveness. She planned to become a nun but left the...