In May 1939, in Nazi-occupied Prague, a Jewish family of five traded their luxurious apartment to a German officer for five exit visas to the United States. At the last possible moment, the officer produced only three exit visas. Because the father's prominent position at Shell Oil put him in immediate danger, he took the desperate course of using the three precious visas for himself, his wife, and his infant son, leaving his two little girls in Prague in their grandmother’s and uncle’s care, for what they all assumed would only be a matter of weeks. This is the actual correspondence between the girls’ grandmother and uncle in Prague and their mother and father in the United States, over a two year period - first, about what became the terrible difficulties of getting the two small sisters out, and then about the grandmother’s and uncle’s own unsuccessful efforts to escape. Set in Prague, the story’s tension comes from the letters tone of growing desperation and longing, coupled with the reader's knowledge of what is to come. Historical notes flesh out a vivid portrait of life within those ever-tightening noose of Nazi laws. These 77 chronological letters, at once so immediate and personal, give testimony not only to the quiet courage of one grandmother and one uncle, but at the same time give voice to the untold stories of all those who did not survive. -- From the book jacket.