This autobiography is a compelling tale of an individual who survived the full brunt of the Shoah as a teenager, from the first day of the war in the small town of Dembitz in 1939 to liberation in Bergen‐Belsen in 1945. The book first provides a nostalgic of Izaak’s prewar life and goes on to detail how his family and community were gradually torn asunder by the Nazi occupation. During the war, Izaak was variously imprisoned in ghettos, work camps, and notorious concentration camps, all the while enduring and witnessing horrific cruelty all around him. Each step of his grueling six‐year journey is carefully remembered and documented in this transfixing memoir. Despite the magnitude of what Izaak faced, he was able to survive in body and spirit. Preserving the seed of religious life planted by his family and community, he was able to rebuild his entire world.