Though the murder of his mother in the massacre of the Jews at Berdichev, Ukraine was the defining moment in Vasily Grossman's adult life, in his masterpiece Life & Fate, Grossman does not mention "Berdichev" by name. Nevertheless, in less than a single page, through the eye of a naive victim, he vividly describes it. The archival research of John and Carol Garrard has revealed his fictional projection to be based upon historical fact; they here disclose what Grossman could not: the names and units of the perpetrators and collaborators.