"As a young girl, Anni is confronted with her family tree. As she scrutinizes it with her father, it seems to her that she has the awesome responsibility of bearing on her own slim shoulders the intolerable weight of all her ancestors. Thus is born an abiding interest in family. Four hundred years of family history. Four hundred years of Central European history! A mixture of oral history, personal reminiscences, and painstaking research."--BOOK JACKET.