When Verona Redwitz was born in 1951 as the sixth child of a Croatian farming family, the hardship was so great that her mother carried the newborn into the storage room and covered her with a grain sieve. Had the blind grandfather not discovered her, the baby would have died. The author vividly describes her childhood in communist Yugoslavia and the difficult life in the village. She always had to struggle for love and recognition; every day was a fight for survival. In oversized rubber boots, the much too thin child stumbled into school. When the bright Verona was denied a better education, she began preparing for her escape from hopelessness even before her 18th birthday. In distant Germany, she found work in a knitwear factory in Upper Bavaria. Soon after, she met her husband, and her life was finally directed onto a happier path.