"In July 1942, my mother, my little sister and I were sitting on our suitcases and packages, near our house, waiting for a truck to take us to a ship outside the German ring around Leningrad.

The city was being evacuated of unnecessary women and hungry children who made no contribution to the city’s defense. There were rumors of an imminent German onslaught. We were to go to Lake Ladoga, to the ships, which crossed the lake under the fire of German planes.

From atop our pile of luggage, I took a farewell look at our house, our yard and No. 7 across the street, which stood there sooty, ruined and shamelessly revealed to all its neighbors: the kitchen on the third floor with cooking utensils still in evidence, a crooked photo in a gilded frame and a bed askew against the remains of the wall."

This remarkable, insightful and often moving collection of short stories gives the reader vivid - and, sometimes, humorous - glimpses into the incredible life of the author, from the innocence of his childhood in war-torn Leningrad, his fight for survival, the pure pleasure to be found in stale bread, through his life as a Jew in the U.S.S.R., to his new home in Israel.