An account, written in the first person, of how life in Danzig became intolerable after the enforcement of anti-Jewish laws. The author, together with her brother-in-law, Walter Dyck, and his wife, therefore moved to Karthaus in Poland, where they lived until August 1939. When war became imminent, they went further east but could find nothing but the most primitive quarters in a small village near Warsaw. Fighting and air attacks caused them to shelter in the woods, but for lack of food they returned.

When German soldiers entered their village, their Danzig passports and their non-Jewish looks enabled them to travel on German lorries in an endeavour to return to Danzig. After a hazardous journey they reached the Polish-German frontier, where they were recognized as Jews and taken to Gestapo quarters for interrogation. Once again their Danzig passports saved them, and they were ordered to return to Danzig. Although they encountered new difficulties with Gestapo officials en route, they finally reached Danzig. The author then joined her old parents in Berlin and lived there until 1943. Her youngest brother in Sweden obtained visas for them, but the Nazis did not give them the exit permit.

One day the Gestapo came to deport the old parents; as the mother was too ill to be taken away, they took the author instead but released her the next day. When the Gestapo returned on 8 January 8 1943 the author fled. With the help of several non-Jews, she lived Underground for the next months. She constantly changed her address, and her ordeal was aggravated by air attacks and hunger. But it became too dangerous and nerve-racking to live without proper papers, and she therefore joined one day a group of refugees from Hamburg and as one of them obtained a document from the Party, made out in her false name. This enabled her to get food and jobs as a dressmaker. On return from her work she found her house destroyed by bombs, and after another series of moves, and a trip to Hamburg to get a so-called “Bombenschein”, she lived for a while in middle and southern Germany. On her return to Berlin, her landlady was asked for her true identity by an unknown lady, and author fled to Flensburg, hoping to be able to cross into Denmark. All her attempts failed. After the war, the Red Cross and a Swedish person in Lübeck helped her to overcome the many difficulties in joining her brother in Sweden.