This is a unique story about the unyielding love of a mother, who fought to protect her two young children from harm while helping every stranger who crossed her path, about belief in god, and the naïve perspective of a child in such a difficult and challenging time.
This is not just another holocaust story. This is the story of an era, when tears of joy and tears grief flow together to the sea, and angels dressed in white battle with angels in black. It is laced with delicate humor and written in associative language, allowing you to relate to the story, no matter at what page you open the book.
Starving, and close to giving up all hope, henry volunteered to work in the stables, responsible for breeding horses for the war effort. As he watched other prisoners leave and never return, henry quickly realised these horses were his only lifeline - because every morning he was sent to the stables, was one more morning he escaped the gas chambers.
The author goes on to describe the defining moments of her childhood after the holocaust, when her family immigrated to the state of israel. She recounts her childhood in the shadow of a holocaust survivor mother, the responsibility she undertook as a child by becoming an anchor for her mother's bi-polar disorder, and how her family never escaped the ever-present black mantle of the holocaust.