Eighteen-year-old Khalil Khouri leaves his home overlooking Bethlehem in the West Bank to seek work in Amman, Jordan. Discouraged, he turns to go home, but it is 1967, the year of the Six-Day War. The bridge crossing the Jordan River is bombed. The rising sun reveals its remains. The rushing river drowns the broken stone supports and twisted steel triangles. Israeli soldiers prevent anyone from crossing to the West Bank. Khalil has lost the address of his American pen pal, Edwin Kirby. He has nothing. Told by Palestinians, Kosovars, Iraqis, and Americans, The Lives We Knew depicts the resilience of the human spirit and the possibility of finding kindred spirits almost anywhere.