Didn't the gas ovens finish you all off? is the response that meets Ruth
Mendenberg when she returns to her village in Poland after the
liberation of Buchenwald at the end of World War II. Her entire family
wiped out in the Holocaust, the fifteen-year-old girl has nowhere to
go.
Members of the underground organization Brichah find her, and she
joins them in their dangerous quest to smuggle illegal immigrants to
Palestine. Ruth risks her life to help lead a group of children on a
daring journey over half a continent and across the sea to Eretz Israel,
using secret routes and forged documents -- and sheer force of will.
This adventure will touch readers, who will marvel at the resources and
inner strength of mere children helping other children to find a place
in this world in which they can belong. Carol Matas, one of the foremost
authors of historical fiction, brings the desperation and passion of
this remarkable journey to life.