Three young Jewish sisters from Leipzig, Germany huddle together in the cold darkness of night waiting for their smugglers to rescue them and bring them to freedom in Belgium. Their mother, in a state of shock following Kristallnacht, is left behind, sedated in a psychiatric hospital. November 1938 begins the four year ordeal of the seven member Kroch family who endure unfathomable conditions in their fight for survival: imprisonment in French internment camps, hiding in a tiny tool shed, and adapting to the deplorable conditions of a Nazi prison. The memoirs of Alexandra, age eleven, and her sisters, fifteen year old Eva and fourteen year old Judith, interweave as they recount the true story of their escape from the Nazis.
Leaving behind their life of luxury, the girls describe unimaginable hunger, deprivation, and fear. Family love, music, and the close friendship of strangers are the essential ingredients that sustain them through the hardships they face. A narrative backdrop threads through the story, providing the socio-political context. From a historical perspective and from the three sisters' witness accounts, the listener will come to understand the progression of antisemitism in Germany and France, the course by which Hitler dismantled democracy, the role France adopted as Nazi collaborators, and how the Swiss policies towards Jews were executed.
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“The story is deeply moving and very disturbing. The material is compelling and reads beautifully.”
—
Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon