An ordinary task like grocery shopping becomes far from ordinary when there are warplanes roaring and diving overhead. From 1942 to 1945 Madzy Brender à Brandis recorded what life was like for herself and her two small children in the Netherlands during the German occupation. She was writing this account for her husband Wim, a demobilized army officer who was then in a prisoner-of-war camp, to read on his return. Her acute eye and graphic writing style create a vivid picture of the lives of civilians during wartime.