Mukacevo, Czechoslovakia. Two young girls, Manci and Ruth Grunberger, are growing up in a loving Jewish family with their six siblings at the base of Carpathian Mountains, a peaceful region until Hungary annexes the territory in 1938.
As WWII engulfs Europe, the area gradually becomes the focus of the Nazi's Final Solution. The Grunberger family is sent to Auschwitz where Josef Mengele chooses who lives and who dies. Their father, mother, and six siblings are murdered in the gas chambers.
The two sisters survive seven months in Auschwitz and another five months marching through the Sudeten Mountains at the mercy of brutal SS guards before being rescued near the Danish border. The sisters are found by family in Philadelphia and become some of the first Jewish refugees brought to the United States.
From these traumatic beginnings, what emerges are two fulfilling life stories. The sisters have different beliefs, interests, and coping methods, and yet, their personal bond - the selfless, unconditional love between them - only grows stronger throughout the years.
Captured in two first-person memoirs-and presented along with added historical references-this is a remarkable story of resilience and survival that describes a resounding triumph of the human spirit spanning nine decades.
