When five-year-old Miriam boards the Serpia Pinto in 1941, she is unaware that she and her mother Kate are escaping the round-ups, separations extermination camps of Nazi Germany. By the age of 12, Miriam has fled two wars and lived in three continents. Gradually understanding her own history, she begins to train as a doctor at the tender age of 16 and eventually returns to Europe, where she settles in London and marries a German artist, former assistant to Oscar Kokoschka. An elegantly written memoir of a truly fascinating life.