In October of 1941, Daniel and his family are forcibly taken by train from their home in Frankfort, Germany, to Lodz, Poland, about 350 miles to the east. Three years later, in August 1944, he is loaded into a freight car and transported to Auschwitz, 200 miles to the south in Poland. After three months he is taken in an open boxcar in the middle of winter to another camp in Buchenwald, Germany, 300 miles to the northwest. Finally, in May, 1945, the war is over, and Daniel travels by train back to Lodz, 350 miles to the east.