In 1945, young Francine and her Maman are sent to the Bergen-Belsen Nazi prison camp, where life is gray and hope­less. Deter­mined to lift Francine’s spir­its, Maman shares a secret: she has smug­gled in two pieces of choco­late. Maman tells her not to eat them yet, say­ing: ​“One day when I see that you real­ly need them… that’s when I’ll give the choco­lates to you.” 

When Francine meets Hélène, a fel­low pris­on­er, she learns anoth­er secret: Hélène is preg­nant and she and her baby are in grave dan­ger. Remem­ber­ing the choco­lates, Francine self­less­ly shares them with this woman in her time of need. Inspired by a remark­able true sto­ry, the book con­cludes with the fact that the real-life Francine Christophe, as an adult, orga­nized a con­fer­ence many years after the Holo­caust for sur­vivors and their men­tal health. One of the guests was a psy­chol­o­gist named Yvonne. At the con­fer­ence, Yvonne intro­duced her­self to Francine: mirac­u­lous­ly, Yvonne was the lit­tle baby whose life had been touched by Francine’s kind­ness in Bergen-Belsen all those years before.