Irene Kucholick was still inspired by her childhood adventures where once she sneaked aboard a forbidden train only to find it packed with wounded soldiers from the Russian front. Determined from that moment on to be a nurse, nineteen-year-old Irene donned dresses again and pursued her vocation. Fielding questions about politics from Examining Boards, she entered nursing school and learned about "capitalistic" venereal diseases. Soon she tread the fine line between comrades at work eager to inform on her and planning a freedomless-future with her beau. Her own convictions and courageous missteps ran her afowl of the Communist party and forced Irene into her last harrowing flight for the border and the freedom which lay beyond.