An ordinary task like grocery shopping becomes far from ordinary when there are warplanes roaring and diving overhead. From 1942 to 1945 Madzy Brender 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.