This book is neither autobiography nor a family history. It is a short account of an unusual childhood and the experience of being born into a family living in a repressive political system.

The family members faced many restrictions in their daily lives but, in other respects, managed to avoid the worst excesses of the Communist regime. The book recounts how, despite many limitations, the author and her brother were protected, encouraged to flourish and were not held back by a hostile political environment until their adult years.

The book recalls the high and low points of life behind the Iron Curtain in one of the least politically conformist countries of the Soviet controlled Eastern Europe. The work records how dramatically life had changed in a previously cut-off society which, nevertheless, had always held high hopes for future progress.