Desperately in need of his mother’s love, little Frits Evenblij finds his life totally changed when his family moves from the Congo to the Netherlands. First, Mama drops him off in an abusive children’s home in Driebergen. Then, the war begins, and Frits witnesses a horrific reprisal killing. He meets terrifying German soldiers in the woods; listens to nightly bombing; and grows increasingly anxious.

Frits finds out that his loving father is dead just before Nazi soldiers remove all Jewish children, except he and his brother, from the home. Untreated rheumatic fever damages Frits’s heart; his brother becomes ill from the extreme deprivations of the Hunger Winter; and his mother continues emotionally unavailable.

The war ends, but not the trouble. Frits acts out, his grades go down, and his mother terms him “very difficult.” The children’s home closes, and she places him in a boarding house headed by a pedophile. By the time the man is arrested, Frits has mastered the art of stuffing pain and determines to do well at school. Despite now living in a tiny rented room, he succeeds.

Frits is beyond elated when he starts college to become an engineer. That is, until his mother tells him it is time to start full-time work so he can pay his own rent. Frits feels his life is over—there is now no hope. Eventually, cold and tired, he ends up in a church, where he ponders the future. He will need to decide whether to stick to hold on to anger or shake off the fetters of rage, embrace love, and start afresh.