Description
Narrowly escaping the Nazi sweep in Southern Poland, Jafa Wallach and her husband, Naton, a physician, were able to send their four-year-old daughter to safety (they prayed) while they themselves along with two of Jafa's brothers managed to dig a shallow hole in the ground beneath the cellar of an heroic Polish mechanic's shop. The four adults managed to survive for 22 months in the grave-like space (less than five feet across and about four feet high) with the help of Jozef Zwonarz, the mechanic. He alone knew of their hiding space and he alone had to secretly supply them with whatever food and water he could manage to sneak to them (mainly old potatoes and very small amounts of water). Wallach graphically describes the darkness, the hunger, the insects, and the fear. Since the hole they were in was less than twenty feet from a Gestapo headquarters in their small town in occupied Poland, they had to be especially quiet.