BERLIN / WARSAW / LUBLIN
Thomas Heiselberg, market researcher at the Milton Company
Marlene Heiselberg, Thomas’s mother
Johannes Heiselberg, Thomas’s father
Hannah Stein, housekeeper and companion of Marlene
Jack Fiske, director and then president of the European department of the Milton Company
Carlson Mailer, Fiske’s successor as director
Frau Tschammer, assistant director of the research department at the Milton Company
Hermann Kreizinger, Thomas’s schoolfriend and member of the SS
Erika Gelber, Thomas’s psychoanalyst
Clarissa Engelhardt, Thomas’s neighbour and subsequent housekeeper
Paul Blum, a partner in Bamberburg Bank
Georg Weller, senior adviser to Dr Karl Schnurre in the German Foreign Office
Rudolf Schumacher, bureaucrat in the Ministry of Economics
Hauptsturmführer Bauer, German intelligence officer
Albert Kresling, officer in the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost, ‘Göring’s man in Poland’
Sturmbannführer Wolfgang Stalker, SS officer working under Kresling in the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost
Sturmbannführer August Frenzel, commander of the freiwillige Umsiedlung, the program for the voluntary deportation of Jews from Lublin
LENINGRAD / BREST
Alexandra (Sasha) Andreyevna Weissberg, literary editor of confessions for the NKVD
Andrei Pavlovich Weissberg, Sasha’s father, physicist
Valeria Weissberg, Sasha’s mother
Vladimir (Vlada) and Nikolai (Kolya) Weissberg, Sasha’s younger twin brothers
Emma Feodorovna Rykova, poet
Brodsky, literary critic
Nadyezhda (Nadya) Petrovna, poet arrested by the NKVD
Konstantin Varlamov, poet
Osip Borisovich Levayev, publisher
Vladimir Vladimirovich Morozovsky, mechanic and poetry lover
Maxim Adamovich Podolsky, Sasha’s husband and coworker in the NKVD
Stepan (Styopa) Kristoforovich Merkalov, head of Sasha’s department
Reznikov, coworker of Sasha and Styopa
Nikita Mikhailovich Kropotkin, Sasha’s superior in Brest