In 1939 five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed
with foster parents. This childless couple promptly erase from the boy all knowledge of his
identity and he grows up ignorant of his past. Later in life after a career as an
architectural historian Austerlitz - having avoided all clues that might point to his origin -
finds the past returning to haunt him and he is forced to explore what happened fifty years
before.
