Rita Rogers grew up in the Bukovina, the once-idyllic heartland of Eastern Europe. As a teenager, she was deported by the Nazis to a transport camp in the Ukraine. There she saved her family from the death camps by impersonating a foundry worker. After years of stateless limbo as a refugee and hair-raising escapes from two Communist regimes, she survived to use her experiences as a child psychiatrist to heal both individual and international conflict.

In this singular collaboration, John E. Mack, psychoanalyst, and Rita S. Rogers, child psychiatrist, together tell the story of her life and explore the mystery of human survival.

Both biography and autobiography, The Alchemy of Survival is a unique addition to the literature of the Holocaust as well as a deeply inspiring story.