Using her teenage diaries, the author tells of the horrors of the siege and surrender of Warsaw in 1939, the food shortages, raids and beatings, and the Nazi "Aktion" in 1942, when her family was hounded from shelter to shelter. In 1943 they escaped the ghetto but faced years in hiding.

Janina Beauman was thirteen-years-old when Hitler's decree forced her family into the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. The young, bright and lively girl suddenly found herself in a cramped flat hiding with other Jewish families. At first even curfews and the casual cruelty meted out by the German occupiers could not completely wipe out her passion for books, boys and romance, 'Perhaps we've been wasting the last bits of our lives not even trying to found out what life is?' Then came the raids and Janina, with her sister and mother, had to keep on the move to avoid being one of thousands rounded up every day and deported to the camps. Their escape to the 'Aryan' side was followed by years spent behind hidden doors, where dependence on others was crucial, and all that a growing
girl craves, denied. Told through her teenage diaries, this is an extraordinary tale of a passionate young woman's survival and courage.