The main character in this story is a Jewish girl named Alicia. When the book starts she is ten years old, she lives in the Polish town of Buczacz with her four brothers, Moshe, Zachary, Bunio, and Herzl, and her mother and father . The holocaust experience began subtly at first when the Russians began to occupy Buczacz. When her brother Moshe was killed at a Boys School in Russia and her father was

gathered up by German authorities, the reality of the whole situation quickly became very real. Her father was taken away shortly after the Russians had moved out and the Germans began to occupy Buczacz. Once the Germans occupied, they moved the Jewish population of Buczacz into mass ghettos. Alicia and the rest of her family had to share a house with several other families which had also been driven out of there homes. The only

source of income in this situation was to sell things at the marketplace, and even there, Jews were forbidden. Alicia went anyway and sold what she could for food and money. One day her brother Bunio disappeared from the ghetto. Alicia and her family found out later that he had been taken to a work camp, but that they could send food packages to him. Shortly after this, Alicia was taken into custody by German officials and

put on a train to another work camp. Alicia managed to escape from this train by jumping through a small window. She found her way to a river which led her back to the ghetto. By this time several people in the ghetto had been feeling the effects of the impoverished conditions. Starvation, Typhoid, and other diseases, were beginning to take its toll on the people who lived in the ghetto. Then one day, Alicia found

out that her brother Bunio had been killed in the work camp. A boy had escaped so they lined up all the boys and shot every fourth one . As time progressed, Alicia began assuming more responsibility for the daily tasks of the family such as going out and trading for more food in places other than the marketplace. While this was going on, Zachary and a few other boys from the ghetto had been forming a sort of resistance. One day Alicia was informed that her brother had been hanged. After Zachary s death, Alicia was befriended by a woman named Bella. She met many good friends in the ghetto including a future friend as well as savior, Milek . Months later, Alicia and several other people were rounded up and sent to a prison in Chortkov. Here the conditions were very poor. Every day more and more people were taken out and shot. On the inside of the cells it was a cesspool of germs and diseases. Every morning the jailkeepers would go around the cell and kick people to see if they were still alive. One of these times Alicia was taken for dead and put onto a wagon with other bodies. The driver of the wagon found her, nursed her back to better health and then brought her back to the ghetto. During this time, before, and after she returned to the ghetto attempts to rid the ghettos of Jews were called actions . To escape being caught by the German police who took part in the actions, they built large bunkers to hide from their captors. After several of these actions, the Buczacz ghetto had been emptied by more than half. At this point the time came to move to a new ghetto. Alicia had been in this new ghetto only a short time when another action occurred. This time Alicia was captured and brought to a mass grave with a multitude of other Jews. Just when Alicia was about to be shot Milek took a gun from one of the shooters and began shooting other officers. Alicia took advantage of this opportunity, as she had many others, and ran for her life. She ran fast and