This nov­el, which is based on the lives of rel­a­tives of the author, tells the sto­ry of four gen­er­a­tions of the Kohler fam­i­ly, follow­ing their lives in Ger­many, Eng­land, Israel, and the U.S. — before, dur­ing, and after the Nazi destruc­tion. Klare Kohler is a strong, passion­ate, and capa­ble woman mar­ried to Jacob, a dif­fi­cult man who suf­fers from the after­ef­fects of mus­tard gas poi­son­ing in World War I. Klare’s long life leads her from a com­fort­able lifestyle in a Ger­man-Jew­ish fam­i­ly to the tumul­tuous war years, when she must send her chil­dren far away; to incar­cer­a­tion in Thereisend­stadt, to a return to her dev­as­tat­ed home­town. Klare’s iden­ti­ty as a Jew evolves through her expe­ri­ences, even as she devel­ops rela­tion­ships with Ger­man non-Jews. This beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten sto­ry gives the read­er insight into a woman who fol­lowed an unusu­al path, and a dif­fer­ent angle on post-World War II life.