Clara Kramer is the daughter of a Jewish factory owner who wrote the book Clara's War: One Girl's Story of Survival. The story is her rmemoir about the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939. It tells of how her hometown of Zolkiew is initially in the Russian occupied part of Poland and how she witnesses several friends and family being killed or deported by the Soviets. When the Russians switch sides and join with the Allies following Germany's invasion of Soviet Union, the Red Army retreats, and the town is occupied by the Nazis. Jews are stripped of their assets and told to relocate to the ghetto, but having heard stories of the treatment of Jews by the Nazis, Clara's family and some friends make the decision to go into hiding.
With the help of Valentin Beck, an ethnic German, and his family, Clara, her family and others are hidden in a purpose-built bunker under Melman's house [ who also share the bunker with Clara's family] , which is no larger than a horse stall. Clara's mother urges her to begin writing a diary so that if they do not survive the war, the world will know what happened to them. This became her memoir - Clara's War: One Girl's Story of Survuval.
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