In 1941, Anna Seminovna, a Russian Jewish doctor, lives in a small city in the Ukraine that has been just seized by the Germans. She writes a letter to her son--unbeknownst to her, it will be her last communication to him. Anna's son is a famous Russian physicist who lives and works far from the front lines at a Soviet science research institute. Anna writes the letter just a few days before knowing that she and the other Jews in the city will be killed by the Germans. The letter includes remembrances of her life, her relationship to her beloved son, her student life in Paris, and her failed marriage. Anna also recounts the reaction of her Russian and Ukrainian neighbors to the arrival of the Germans, the various responses of the Jewish community, the cruelty and horrors of the occupation, the help of some Russian neighbors, the greed and indifference of others--and most importantly, her slow recognition that her Jewish heritage is more important to her than her Russian nationality or Communist ideology. The letter, with its detailed observations of daily life in the ghetto, reveals the fear, courage, frailty, compassion and dignity of this professional woman as she reviews her life and faces her death.