Hannah Stern is a young Jewish girl living in the present day (time of publication: 1980s). She is bored by her relative's stories about the past and not looking forward to the Passover Seder and is tired of her religion. While at it, she says she is tired of remembering. When Hannah symbolically opens the door for the prophet Elijah, she is transported back in time to 1942 in Poland of World War II. At that time and place, the people believe she is Chaya Abramowicz, who is recovering from cholera, the fever that killed Chaya's parents a few months ago. The strange remarks Hannah/Chaya makes about the future and her inability to recognize her "aunt" Gitl and "uncle" Shmuel are blamed on the fever.
At her "uncle's" wedding, the Nazis come to transport the entire population of the village to a concentration camp near Donavin, and only Hannah knows all the terrors that they will face: starvation, mistreatment, forced labors, and finally execution. She struggles to survive at the camp, with the help of a girl named Rivka. Rivka gives Hannah a metal bowl to eat out of, drink, and bathe. At the concentration camp, Aunt Gitl, Hannah, Uncle Shmuel, and some other men try to escape. The men are caught and are shot in front of the inmates, except for Gitl and Hannah who return to their barracks and Yitzchak who escapes. Fayge, Shmuel's girlfriend, is also killed because she runs to Shmuel when he is about to be shot.
Later, when Hannah and the girls from Viosk are talking, while waiting for water, they are caught by a new Nazi soldier, who sends Esther, Shifre, and Rivka to the gas ovens. As Rivka is about to leave, Hannah takes Rivka's place and tells her to run, since the guard doesn't know their faces. Then, after she walks into "Lilith's Cave" to be gassed, she is transported back to her family's Seder. She notices Aunt Eva's number was the same as Rivka's, and while recounting her experience to her aunt, the aunt reveals that when she was in the concentration camps, she was called Rivka (and her brother was called Wolfe, which was Grandpa Will) and was saved by a girl named Chaya Abramowicz while in a concentration camp. Showing that she has gotten rid of her previous additude about the holocaust, she says to her Aunt Eva, "I remember."
At her "uncle's" wedding, the Nazis come to transport the entire population of the village to a concentration camp near Donavin, and only Hannah knows all the terrors that they will face: starvation, mistreatment, forced labors, and finally execution. She struggles to survive at the camp, with the help of a girl named Rivka. Rivka gives Hannah a metal bowl to eat out of, drink, and bathe. At the concentration camp, Aunt Gitl, Hannah, Uncle Shmuel, and some other men try to escape. The men are caught and are shot in front of the inmates, except for Gitl and Hannah who return to their barracks and Yitzchak who escapes. Fayge, Shmuel's girlfriend, is also killed because she runs to Shmuel when he is about to be shot.
Later, when Hannah and the girls from Viosk are talking, while waiting for water, they are caught by a new Nazi soldier, who sends Esther, Shifre, and Rivka to the gas ovens. As Rivka is about to leave, Hannah takes Rivka's place and tells her to run, since the guard doesn't know their faces. Then, after she walks into "Lilith's Cave" to be gassed, she is transported back to her family's Seder. She notices Aunt Eva's number was the same as Rivka's, and while recounting her experience to her aunt, the aunt reveals that when she was in the concentration camps, she was called Rivka (and her brother was called Wolfe, which was Grandpa Will) and was saved by a girl named Chaya Abramowicz while in a concentration camp. Showing that she has gotten rid of her previous additude about the holocaust, she says to her Aunt Eva, "I remember."
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