After learn­ing at his father’s funer­al that his father had been in the Free­dom Fight­ers, a Jew­ish resis­tance move­ment in Vil­na, Lithua­nia, the author spent the next ten years research­ing both the his­tor­i­cal and per­son­al sto­ries of this time and place, par­tic­u­lar­ly his par­ents’ roles in the Resis­tance. His par­ents, Leiz­er and Zenia, had been mar­ried in the Ghet­to by one of the last rab­bis left alive. Instead of wait­ing in the Vil­na Ghet­to to be shipped to Auschwitz, the author’s par­ents had escaped to the Rud­nic­ki for­est, about twen­ty-five miles from the ghet­to, and became active mem­bers of Abba Kovner’s Jew­ish par­ti­san group, ​“the Avengers.” Theirs was a love sto­ry that flour­ished despite the pri­va­tions of the Ghet­to and the part­ners’ dis­parate ages and social status.