In the town of Buczacz, Poland live the Jurman family and about eighteen thousand Jewish people. "Poland will never forget the year of 1939," Alicia stated because as the Germans took over the city was turned into ghettos for the Jews. Alicia was accidentally out on a train and as it trailed out of town, the people on board realized they were being sent to their death. Alicia was pushed out of the window, and her life was spared. When guards came looking for her mother, Alicia took her place and was sent to a work camp. She watched many die. The prison guards gave her a large bucket of water and awoke many days later in a strange home confused and sick. The water had been poisoned with typhoid and the very people that were supposed to dispose of Alicia's body are the ones who rescued her body from a pile of corpses. The Golds nursed her back to health and arranged travel for her back home once she was well.
Alicia and her mother fled to the mountains, valleys and villages nearby after the death of her four brothers and father. They survive on the kindness of others. Alicia provides the food and shelter, she works long, tireless hours for a few vegetables and they sleep in haylofts when lucky. They meet a bee keeper who allows them to stay on his home, risking his own safety. After her mother is shot dead to spare Alicia's life, she travels to Chortkov thanks to the Russian Army. She had to get away from a city that was a shell of itself and held too many traumatic memories. She became a part of Brecha, an organization that assisted the escape of Jews from dangerous countries.
Alicia then opened and ran an orphanage in Biala, caring for 24 children. She left them in good hands and went on to help many more to safe lands. She became involved with the PaChaCh organization that was concerned about the survival of all people. They choose ten people to travel to Eretz Island (Palestine). Through Salzburg, Maraquain, Paris and at last Marseilles where they loaded onto boats and set forth to Eretz Island. They were apprehended by military prison ships and sent them to be refugees in Cyprus. Nine months later, Alicia was sent to Tel Aviv for agricultural school. She met an American volunteer, Gabriel Appleman, and married the next year in 1950.
