Summary

In the Prologue, Menachem Meller asks his young daughters, Cibi, Magda, and Livi to make a promise that they will always stay together. Menachem is worried that his surgery, to remove the bullet from his neck, will not end well and wants to ensure that in his daughters will have one another for support.

Chapter 1 opens in 1942, when Magda is sick with a fever and Cibi is away training with the Hachshara. The doctor, Mr. Kisely, who visits Magda at the Meller home, advises Chaya, the girls’ mother, that Magda would be safest if she was admitted to hospital. He tells the family that he is “hearing terrible rumors—talk of young Jews, girls and boy, being taken from Slovakia to work for the Germans” (10). He believes that the Meller daughters will be safe from the Germans because Cibi is away, Magda...