Ivor is 12 when the Nazis march into his village in Hungary. His father and eldest brother are immediately sent to a labour battalion and the remaining family, to the ghetto, where they are eventually rounded up, herded to the station and pushed onto cattle trucks.

On arrival at Auschwitz, his mother insists he leaves his sisters and younger siblings and stands with his two older brothers. Told to say he is sixteen, he makes the selection alongside them. In the shower blocks, he is disinfected, shaved, uniformed, given a number and marched to a barracks where his eldest brother is taken to work in the crematorium. Ivor and his remaining brother, Alec spend the next 6 months witnessing the full horror of Birkenau.
Soon after Ivor and Alec are miraculously reunited with their father, they are sent on another cattle truck to Kaufering IV where they are all put to work at Walnuss II. When Father and Alec are taken away at roll call, Ivor reaches his lowest point and by the time Alec returns three weeks later, he has contracted Typhus. Near to death, he is carried from the sick barracks by his brother. Realising the war is almost lost, a Nazi officer is ordered to lead them on a death march and kill them in the mountains. Fearing he will be tried for war crimes, he delivers them alive to Allach 6 days later.

When an artillery shell destroys part of the fence, they escape into the woods and hide out in an abandoned hut. American soldiers break in looking for Nazis and explain the war is over and they must go to Dachau which has been liberated. Once there, they clean up and are given fresh clothes and food.
After finding out they are the only survivors in the family, Ivor sneaks onto a bus to Munich and into a cinema where he sees his first-ever film. On a second trip, he is arrested and accused of black marketeering. Appearing in court the judge is shown his Dachau papers and allows him to go free. Ivor and Alec are sent to Feldafing, the camp for displaced persons. They attend a Kol Nidre service and light memorial candles. Being the youngest, they are soon put on a plane to the UK.