Includes bibliographical references (p. [677]-719).

Setting out -- Pt. 1: Before March 15, 1939. An unwelcome guest ; Tales of Bohemia ; The competition ; The linden tree ; A favorable impression ; Out from behind the mountains ; "We must go on being cowards" ; A hopeless task -- Part two: April 1939-April 1942. Starting over ; Occupation and resistance ; The lamps go out ; The irresistible force ; Fire in the sky ; The alliance comes together ; The crown of Wenceslas -- Pt. 3: May 1942-April 1945. Day of the assassins ; Auguries of genocide ; Terezin ; The bridge too far ; Cried-out eyes ; Doodlebugs and gooney birds ; Hitler's end -- Pt. 4: May 1945-November 1948. No angels ; Unpatched ; A world big enough to keep us apart ; A precarious balance ; Struggle for a nation's soul ; A failure to communicate ; The fall ; Sands through the hour-glass -- The next chapter -- Guide to personalities -- Time lines.

From former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright comes a moving and thoughtful memoir of her formative years in Czechoslovakia during the tumult of Nazi occupation, World War II, fascism, and the onset of the Cold War.