When you leave Budapest, you head east toward the Ukraine where the Jewish partisan units have been most effective in fighting the Germans. You feel you must ally yourself with one of these groups because you are tired of letting the Germans have their way. You feel it is time to resist more actively. You also know that you will feel comfortable only among other Jews. One unhappy lesson you have learned in the last few years is that you cannot trust the non-Jews who live in Eastern Europe. Their anti-Semitism is sometimes so strong that, although they hate the Germans, they would rather turn you over to them than enlist your support to fight them.
As you move farther east, past the cities of Berdichev and Zhitomir, famous Jewish communities of the past, you recall a name you once heard: Abba Kovner. Somewhere someone told you that he was a courageous commander of a resistance unit near Kiev. Kovner is the leader you must find.
Your trip covers over five hundred miles, much of it through areas heavily patrolled by the German army. Several times, you have narrow escapes. Once, German soldiers even began a conversation with you, but they think you are only a local peasant. You are able to keep your real identity hidden. After two months of travel, almost all on foot, you reach the camp where the Jewish resistance movement has its center.