The Second World War — the worst thing that ever happened! For Poland, the War began in September 1939 when Germany invaded from the west, and Russia from the east. Among their victims was a five-year-old named Basia Deszberg, whose father and brother were shot in the Katyn Forest massacres. Meanwhile she, her sister, and their mother were loaded into a cattle car for a horrific three-week journey to the steppes of Kazakhstan, there to survive as best they could. Over the next eight years, Basia would escape through Persia, Lebanon, and Egypt to safe haven in England.

Meanwhile, Daniel Ford grew up in a United States mired by the Great Depression. Europe's agony was America's windfall! Dan went from hardscrabble poverty to a fellowship that took him to the English university where Basia was also a student. This is the story of their meeting, their travels, and their parting. "An extraordinary book, highly original, gripping, at once full of joy and of sorrow" (Irene Tomaszewski, Cosmopolitan Review, March 2014).