Beginning with a love story and ending with a ledger of its character's fates, The Inventory examines the ways in which the lives of ordinary citizens intersect in a society where persecution and extermination become daily events. We see Volker Tilling, a high-school student tortured by the Gestapo because of his vague association with the Young Socialist Workers brigade; Werner Kurig, a renowned opera singer who is beaten for suspicion of homosexuality; and little Anna Rossner, whose mental disability sends her-trustingly-to the camps. Written with a surprising, analytic tone, ringed with irony and sarcasm, The Inventory bears the authenticity of reportage in its terrifying register of the Holocaust.