The author relates the remarkable story of his pianist mother and her sister, child prodigies who escaped certain death when the Nazis invaded Ukraine, adopted new identities, and came under the protection of a Nazi commander who heard them play.

It is the holiday of Purim -- a time to stage comic and entertaining plays or "Purimshpiels". But in the village of Shamgorod in 1649, this festive custom takes a tragic turn. Three itinerant actors show up at an inn to perform a Purim play for the Jewish community. The discovery that Shamgorod has suffered a pogrom and only two Jews have survived -- the innkeeper, Berish, and his daughter. Egged on by Berish, the actors agree that instead of a "Purimshpiel" they will stage a mock trial of God, indicting Him for allowing such things to happen to His children. Berish wants to be the Prosecutor; the three actors agree to be the Judges. But who will be Defense Attorney? A Stranger, who looks oddly familiar to all of them, appears and offers to take the role. Meanwhile the mob outside is planning a new assault on the inn. -- From publisher's description.

A rabbi remembers her life as a child in Kiev, Ukraine, where her family lived under Soviet rule until they moved to the United States when she was fifteen.

The unfinished memoirs of Hugo Gryn (1930-1996), born in Berehove, Ruthenia, completed by his daughter. Ch. 11-13 (pp. 123-229), written by Gryn in the USA in 1951, describe his experiences in the Holocaust from the viewpoint of a teenager. In April 1944 Gryn and his family, with the other Jews of Berehove, were interned in a nearby brick factory. In June 1944 they were deported to Auschwitz. Gryn and his father were then sent to the Lieberose concentration camp in Upper Silesia. Naomi Gryn pieces together the remaining account from various writings and interviews, describing a death march which ended at Gunskirchen. Gryn's father succumbed there, shortly after the liberation; his brother perished at Auschwitz, but his mother survived. Gryn moved to England with a group of child survivors in 1946, and later became a well-known rabbi.

"The story of a child of war torn from the country and home he knows and loves, amid the swirling confusion of political upheaval, violence and personal loss. Based on a true story about a young boy who was exiled to Siberia as a child during the Second World War"--OCLC.