Though her writing lacks sophistication, Gould offers a vivid recollection of a wartime childhood. The daughter of Polish immigrants living in France, she remained unaware until age 13 that she was Jewish. She learned of her heritage in 1940, when Germany invaded France. Gould details the complicated route she and her parents took to safety: she and her mother escaped occupied France to Marseilles, where they were reunited with Gould's father, and were smuggled across the Pyrenees to Portugal. In 1943, without her parents, Gould came to the U.S. under the auspices of an American Quaker organization and lived in several temporary homes, until she was joined by her mother and the two settled n New York City. Her father followed several years later. The remainder of this account, which often reads like diary excerpts, describes her high school and college years, her left-wing politics and how she met her husband. Although Gould's narrow escape from the Nazis looms large in the book's first half, the remainder will appeal more to those who enjoy reminiscences of growing up than to those interested in the Holocaust.