The book tells about the fate of the author, who was 10 years old when the Second World War broke out and was a pupil of a Warsaw public school. In September 1939, she lived with her parents and brothers in Nowiniarská Street. They had to move to the ghetto, where they lived until the outbreak of the uprising. For some time she was hiding in a bunker on Milé Street. In May 1943, she was transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp. She also went through the Auschwitz and Ravensbruck camps. She was liberated in the Neustadt-Glewe camp. Most of her closest relatives did not live to see the end of the war.
The author writes about her experiences in extermination camps, she also describes her struggle for life in the Warsaw ghetto. Her description is as authentic as if you were listening to the narration of a close person. It shows the life of ordinary people, the true face of war, stripped of the heroic-patriotic mask, and depicts Nazi executioners and their victims with almost photographic accuracy.
The book is followed by a short diary written in 1986, which describes her impressions of visiting the places where the author spent her childhood and experienced the most terrible moments during the occupation.