From the author of the first biography of the hero Sobibor Alexander Pechersky. Along the San River in the fall of 1939, the war divided the Polish city of Przemysl into two parts - German and Soviet. Jews ran along bridges and ford from cities and towns occupied by Hitler to the USSR. The fate of the fugitives was not easy, many were sent directly from the border to camps and prisons, but ultimately most of them managed to escape from imminent death in the fire of the Holocaust. From the pages of this book you will learn about the further fate of these people, including the future head of the State of Israel Menachem Begin and one of the greatest Soviet composers Mechislav Weinberg. And also about how Lieutenant Border Troops Ivan Krivonogov fiercely defended his bunker on the San River for 12 days, and how, after three and a half years of captivity, he fled from a concentration camp on the island of Usedom in a German bomber. And about how the Wehrmacht lieutenant Albert Battel took Jews out of the Przemysl ghetto by truck, thanks to him the survivors. The book also includes other little-known stories based on archival research of the author, the first of which relate to the beginning of World War II (September 1939), and the last to its end (August 1945).