Three generations face the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century--the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, the vicious arbitrariness of Stalin's purges, mass famine during the Siege of Leningrad, the bombing of Berlin during the Nazi's final days--and relentlessly fight to insure the survival of their family. Robert Reincke bases his historical novel on the reminiscences of both his mother and his centenarian grandmother. His own family history is thoroughly investigated and transformed in this imaginative work that allows us to glimpse what it was like to live through events we read about in history books.