The memoirs of the Polish-Jewish writer, physician and humanitarian aid activist, Alina Margolis-Edelman (1922–2008), presents the life of its author from her childhood in Łódź, Poland till the end of the World War II. Soon after the beginning of the war her father was shot by the Gestapo, and her mother moved to Warsaw Ghetto with Alina and her younger brother. Alina enrolled in the Jewish School of Nursing and worked as a nurse and a courier for the Resistance movement. In a rescue action she describes in the book, she saved the life of Marek Edelman – one of the leaders of the Ghetto Uprising (1943), and he later became her husband.


The stories told in her book illuminate issues of anti-Semitism, Holocaust, and Jewish resistance to oppression. She writes about solidarity in times of great danger, resilience in dire situations, dignity of love and care.

Introduction by: Marci Shore