Devorah carries a stone in her heart. Their strength sapped by poverty, both her parents died in a typhoid epidemic. Her aunt died too, trying to protect Devorah and her sister, in one of the pogroms that took place during the Kiev Offensive of the Soviet-Polish War in 1920. With no family left and driven from their home, Devorah and her sister are taken to South Africa to begin a new life in Cape Town's Jewish community.