At the age of five, Jonah is taken from his home in Amsterdam, along with his parents, by soldiers speaking a language he doesn't understand. The family is sent first to a village in the Dutch countryside, then to a transit camp. The little boy has no idea what is going on, but he's sustained by his parents' love, his memories of the past ; and his fundamental sense of security enables him not only to face the sufferings that are inflicted to him, but to observe with a certain equanimity, even humour at times, the details of his strange new life...