In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It's a decision that will alter her destin and it's a lie that will remain buried until the next century.

It is the spring of 1939, and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows ever closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships facing Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. As the horrors overtaking Europe become inescapable, the Kurc family will be flung to the far corners of the earth, each desperately trying...

As bombs rain down on Warsaw and Hitler's forces surround the city, childhood friends Zofia and Janina join the war effort using one of the only weapons that still feel safe to them: literature, fighting to preserve their culture and community and finding hope in each other in order to survive.