Operation Wetback, as it was known, ended up separating parents from their children, stranding deportees in the deserts of northern Mexico without food or water, and damaging the U.S.'s reputation at home and abroad.
Mr Freedland's vivid, compassionate book brings out the horror and tragedy of his experiences: the Nazis' depravity, the caprices of death and survival, the toll of violence, exhaustion and incomprehension on the doomed deportees.