This emotionally charged memoir begins with recollections of joyous times in prewar Poland. Born into wealth rare for Polish Jewry, the author recalls a girlhood of privilege, and teen years spent in anticipation of war. Like the rest of the nation, her family was consumed by spirited political debates, only to be abruptly silenced by sirens screaming in the night. Poland had fallen to Hitler's Germany in a swift and savage invasion that would forever alter young Rose Strzegowski's fate. . . and that of the world.
With powerful immediacy she shows how inner strength enabled her to triumph amid the horrors of the camps, to risk all to nurse her sick sister, to surmount postwar hardships as a displaced person and, finally, to embrace newfound happiness. It is an unforgettable story of historic adversity filtered through the prism of personal courage, faith, and growth.