This volume describes the lives of the novel's protagonists in the Lodz Ghetto at the beginning of World War II. Chava Rosenfarb, herself a survivor of the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen, draws on her own history to create realistic characters who struggle daily to retain a sense of humanity and dignity despite the physical and psychological effects of ghetto life. Although horrendous experiences are depicted, the light of faith in the human spirit shines through this novel's every page. This novel is the winner of the 1972 J. J. Segal Prize and the 1979 Manger Prize for Yiddish Literature, published in 1985, Cloth, English-language edition, Globe Press, Australia.