In Moscow at the height of the 1936 Stalinist purges, Grisha Shwartzman discovers on Rosh Hashanah--the Jewish New Year and Day of Judgment--that he is in danger of liquidation by the secret police he serves. In 1942, Yechiel Katzman finds himself on a train of imprisoned Jews as it leaves the Warsaw ghetto on Yom Kippur--the Day of Atonement--for resettlement in the East. Stalin and Hitler decree certain death, but in the course of their experiences Grisha and Yechiel discover Jewish fates. Through memory, both men gain community, dignity, and the awareness of sanctity, Grisha's Soviet Rosh Hashanah and Yechiel's Nazi Yom Kippur are truly Days of Awe.