Palestine, summer 1947: Doctor Zalman Grinberg writes down his memories of the long journey from Lithuania to his new residence in the Middle East. He begins with the occupation of Lithuania by German troops in June 1941 and the immediate transfer of the Jewish population to a ghetto. Life there was characterized by harassments and violence. In July 1944, the surviving male Jews were taken to the German Concentration camp of Dachau, where they were put to work building an underground aircraft factory. Grinberg openly describes the brutal everyday life in the camps, which came to a sudden end in April 1945: After escaping from a death train, the prisoners set up a hospital for the badly scarred concentration camp inmates in the monastery of St. Ottilien.