Based on the life of Jack Gruener, this book relates his story of survival from the Nazi occupation of Krakow, when he was eleven, through a succession of concentration camps, to the final liberation of Dachau.

"Life is a constant struggle for the eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three younger siblings in rural Poland under the shadow of the Nazi occupation...Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village...Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam--a Jew--but Helena's concern for the American grows into something much deeper...[as] Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her...