This is the story of one family's struggle to survive in the squalor of the Warsaw ghetto during the onset of the Holocaust. Yossel Yurek is a thirteen-year-old Jew whose ingenuity in smuggling goods in and out of his community saved the lives of those dear to him -- as well as his own. It is the story of his mother, Golda, who courageously escaped from Treblinka. It is the true story of a family torn asunder forever by war.

By January 1943, everyone in Warsaw knew that the deportations of the ghetto residents meant the death of the ghetto, and of the ghetto inhabitants, as well. After Yurek's older sister was deported, willingly accompanied by her father, Yurek attempted to find a hiding place for himself and his younger sister, Hannah, while his mother, Golda, remained at home to earn money in order to pay the Polish family who hid her two children.