The story of a girl growing up in war-torn Germany in Halle and Stettin, her life behind the Iron Curtain, her emigration and the family she left behind, and the triumphant life she built for herself in America. It provides a teenager's perspective of life under occupation, a young adult's thoughts on being a foreigner in a foreign land, an adult's views on freedom, family, and gratitude, and a widow's feelings on the problems of growing old.