As the Nazi SS troops stormed through the Warsaw ghetto apartment, five-year-old Felicia and her younger brother Yurek crouched alone in a coal box, hidden by their aunt. The pounding boots stopped right in front of the terrified children. Would Yurek cry and give them away? Felicia shoved her fist into Yurek's mouth and held him close. The boots went away.
Felicia's mother was dead of typhoid fever and her father, desperate to save his blonde daughter, arranged a new life for her with a Catholic family. Her aunt's parting words were, "Do you remember Shirley Temple? Be an actress like she is. Remember, from today, please, you must lie."
This memoir recounts the author's struggle, first to survive the Nazi onslaught as a hidden child and then to uncover her true self amid the lies, which had been essential to her survival. It is the story of a young girl always on the run, until she rediscovers her Jewish roots in emigrating to Israel and then settles in the United States where, at last, she no longer needs to act and she and Shirley Temple can part.