This is an historic fiction account of two Germany families, good friends for generations, living near Munich, Germany in the period just before World War two to just after the World War. One family, the Levis, are Jewish, their friends the Mathais's are Catholic. By 1936, when this novel begins, the Nazi's are imposing their most vicious polices on Jews and any other German citizens that oppose them. In an attempt to save the Levi farm and grand estate called Kalvarianhof from Nazi confiscation, the two families secretly agree to exchange residences. Markus Mathais, a Colonel in the German army but secretly working with the Resistance, moves his family into the Levi farm, and the Levi family, after changing their names, move into the Mathais family apartment in Munich. Since their son Karl Levi is a young man just twenty years old, he is very conspicuous for not being in the army and is in constant danger of being arrested. Desperate to save their son, the Levis insist he go live with a family friend in Lisbon, Portugal, a neutral country. Karl resists moving to Portugal because he is in love with Markus' daughter, Charlotte Mathais. As times become more desperately dangerous for he and his family, Karl reluctantly agrees to leave Germany on the dangerous journey to Portugal, encouraged by his lover Charlotte. Their ongoing romantic relationship is one of the main emotional themes in the novel. As the war rages on the two families struggle to stay alive during one harrowing misadventure after another. In the meantime, Charlotte is enlisted as a medic on a German Army evacuation train for wounded soldiers returning from the Russian front. Her train is bombed, presumably killing everyone aboard and she is declared officially dead by the authorities, devastating her family. Meanwhile, Karl, with no news from home and desperate to see his lover Charlotte, decides to attempt the long dangerous trip back home through German occupied France. His yearlong trek ho