In 1942 sixteen-year-old Chaya Lindner is a Jewish girl living in Nazi-occupied Poland, a courier who smuggles food and documents to the isolated Jewish ghettos in southern Poland, depending on her forged papers and "Aryan" features--but when a mission goes wrong and many of her colleagues are arrested she finds herself on a journey to Warsaw, where an uprising is in the works.

In 1944, the Polish city of Lwów has been liberated from Germany but is caught among the insurgent armies of several countries and its resistance fighter; in this city, loyalty comes second to self-preservation. In order to eat, Tolya joins the Red Army but is rescued by Ukrainian freedom fighters after he murders a Soviet officer in the street. That doesn't mean he trusts them, though.

Following a heartbreaking struggle to survive as a Jewish child in Germany, Felix faces perhaps his greatest challenge; to find hope when he's lost almost everything. As Europe goes through the final agonizing stages of the war, Felix struggles to reconcile hatred and healing.