Adam Starkopf was born and raised in Warsaw. When World War II broke out in 1939 he was cut off from his family by the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland. He made his way back to the German occupied sector of Poland in order to be with his wife and family. The Starkopf's daughter, Jasia (Joanne) was born in the Warsaw ghetto in January 1941. When it became clear that the ghetto would be liquidated, Adam Starkopf with his wife, Pela, and their infant daughter, escaped from the ghetto through the Jewish cemetery of Warsaw. They pretended that the baby had died, and she was carried out in a hearse. For over two years the Starkopf's , under the assumed name of Bludovski managed to pass as Polish "Aryans." Armed with forged identity papers and blessed with "good" looks, they lived and worked in the Polish countryside, making friends with peasants and working people around them. *from the dust jacket.