A good opening in the book takes you through the aftermath of war in Warsaw following the Russian liberation. The writing style gives you a sense of the destruction that war has on the people and the buildings, it is very eerie as you read the descriptions of what the liberators are seeing, the Russians having no sense of what there was before and the Polish remembering what the city was like before war and the comings and goings of that pre-war city. The story concentrates on Misha, a Polish Jew serving in the Polish army and describes his feelings as he sees the ghetto where he was kept razed to the ground along with the orphanage. You get a feeling from the book that he is expecting to find the children still in the orphanage and a feeling of great sadness when he realises all the children have gone, but where, still alive? The book then takes you back to pre war Warsaw and Misha's story begins. A great read that you will not be able to put down!