Imagine trying to stay alive during the terrifying years of deprivation, deportation and imprisonment of Jews to Nazi labor and extermination camps during World War II. If this weren’t challenge enough for the Štaub family; mother Irene, father Frici, and their young son Oskar, all citizens of Prešov located in eastern Slovakia, consider the odds of survival after fleeing into the forbidding Tatra mountains in the winter of 1944, a very last resort, in order to hide from the brutal, paramilitary Slovakian forces and their Nazi German operatives. Robbed of their home, their assets, and their very identity, together this family beat the odds, and young Osi found the courage and resiliency to cope with physical and emotional challenges far beyond his years.

A coming-of-age story set against the collapse of Slovakia and the conquest of the Allied Forces over Germany, learn how one child’s remarkable journey to safety and adolescence encompasses the essence of Jewish life before the war and the overwhelming tragedy of a genocide whose effects are still being felt around the world. Written with the precision of unfailing memory and the pain of personal experience, Oscar (Osi) Sladek tells an unforgettable story of resilience and personal triumph.