Piri Piroska Mendelovits imagined being carefree like the butter?ies in the spring meadow near her home, but her fantasy became a nightmare before her dream came true. She Was one of thousands of Hungarian Jews deported by the Nazis in the last year of World War II. A childhood of poverty and hunger was only a prelude to the deprivation Piri suffered in the shadows of Dr. Joseph Mengele, Amen Goth, and other cruel Nazis. Piri returned to her childhood home for the ?rst time in 1988. She stood in the cemetery under the same cherry tree that had shaded her as a child. As she watched the blossoms ?oat across her father's grave, the memories of spring and the darkest winter of her life invaded her mind. Like the cherry tree, she had survived; but the shadows lingered. Piri faces those shadows with startling contrasts in this account of the Holocaust. She shares the experiences of her youth "so the world will never forget, so no one will ever experience a winter like the Holocaust again.