On June 24, 1941, Michael, 16, and his sister, 19, leave their home in Dubno in Ukraine, just ahead of the advancing German armies. Fleeing by foot and train, deep into Ukraine and beyond, the teens spend a brutal winter in a town near Stalingrad, where they nearly perish from hunger and cold. In July of 1942, they escape again ahead of the Germans' onslaught. The siblings' saga of loss, courage, and endurance is interlaced with accounts of critical events of the war and of the annihilation of the Jews in Ukraine, offering an important historical narrative of the challenges wartime refugees...

On June 24, 1941, Michael, 16, and his sister, 19, leave their home in Dubno in Ukraine, just ahead of the advancing German armies. Fleeing by foot and train, deep into Ukraine and beyond, the teens spend a brutal winter in a town near Stalingrad, where they nearly perish from hunger and cold. In July of 1942, they escape again ahead of the Germans' onslaught. The siblings' saga of loss, courage, and endurance is interlaced with accounts of critical events of the war and of the annihilation of the Jews in Ukraine, offering an important historical narrative of the challenges wartime refugees...