An evocative work of nonfiction about the indomitable strength of a woman’s hope, regardless of the Holocaust, and all the twentieth century world would present her.

If you met Mama, a Holocaust survivor, you’d never suspect the four years of unrelenting and unimaginable terror she’d experienced in her life. You’d never know how, during the war, she dedicated herself to saving her infant son when so many other mothers’ children were killed by the Nazis. You’d never know how, despite all the death surrounding her, she never stopped hoping that her family would survive Lithuania’s Kovno Ghetto/Concentration Camp. You’d never know . . .

Why? Because Mama buried the past deep within her, covering it with lots of hope. Then, too, there was so much to do: A home to make in America. A business to recreate with Papa. A son to help become a businessman. And a daughter to help somehow find her way into the theater—a glamorous world that Mama, a woman who’d always wished for more than marriage, loved.

For a long time, author Diane Cypkin didn’t know the story of her mother’s past. She was so young—and her mama was always so full of life, so upbeat. But eventually, time and circumstances revealed everything.