This book is a rendezvous of history and imagination and dreams and of hopes and disenchantments. It unfolds in a succession of reminiscences that weave together a shimmering tapestry depicting a lost world. The setting is Lodz, Poland, in the years between the author's childhood and early maturity, a period overtaken by the cataclysmic events of the 1930s and early 1940s. The narrative approach presents a powerful personal testament and reflects the determination of an entire community to remain human in the face of its greatest peril, even at the last frontier of life.