We Only Have Each Other

Book excerpt: In the true story -- We Only Have Each Other -- Yaja remembers the heart-wrenching stories her mother told of her childhood when she was orphaned at the age of 12 and lived during World War I and in constant fear of the Cossacks. Yaja's memory goes back to her childhood when she began first grade and the secrets she kept, because she was afraid of going to hell. She was still a child when Hitler's lackeys invaded her world, and the struggle to survive had begun a long agonizing journey for Yaja and her sister, Bela, three years her senior. A new life-threatening time had begun after the Russians liberated the two surviving sisters. Yaja recalls the life-threatening danger until the escape from East to West. She tells of her two unhappy marriages. Against all odds Yaja fought to achieve a profession and continued to better her life through education. Through it all, the hardest thing was when she lost her only surviving sister.