Rachel Hochhauser (née Sweden), born July 2, 1928 in Krzywice, Poland, describes being the only child of a religious family; her grandfather, who was rabbi and shochet of the Shtetl; her grandmother and parents, who operated a general store; her religious education and comfortable life before WWII; the friendly relations with their Polish and Russian neighbors until September 3, 1939; the restrictive occupation under the Russians; the persecution by Germans and local collaborators in summer of 1941; her father’s murder; hiding with her mother and other relatives after warnings from non-Jews, including the police Kommandant for whom she worked; hiding on several farms from April 1942 until 1944; being protected for 20 months by a Catholic farmer's wife, Anna Kobinska, with whom Rachel continued to correspond after the war; being forced to move for the final time and going in to a partisan-occupied area; the privations of living in a swamp during the winter of 1943-1944; having a log bunker built for them in the woods in exchange for 20 rubles of gold; sheltering with ten people until spring 1944; how the Russian Blitzkrieg and deserting Germans drove the group to return to their homes in Krzywice, where her family was welcomed home by neighbors; her family’s adoption of an orphan girl found in their house; moving westward to the displaced persons camp at Föhrenwald; her education there in the DP camp at an ORT school; and immigrating to the United States in April 1951.