One step ahead, the title, is clear in the context of the holocaust perpetrated with full intention during WWII by the nazi regime across all of occupied Europe, and chiefly in the eastern sector.
This is the story of a family that fled across border to east for reasons not then clear to them, but fleeing the advancing German forces that not only had no compunction firing and bombing aimed at fleeing poor civilians in wagons or on foot, women, children, old or sick, but in all probability were ordered to do so too and used not only infantry and artillery but their vastly modern air force too, for this purpose.
This family fled their home and town Skalat, at the then border of Poland and Ukraine, escaping the death that overtook the hundreds on road alongside, often by inches, and survived this and much more. And it took most of the time span of this escape for them to realise they were fortunate to have left, for no one of their families or friends back home had survived!
Priceless reading, even when one is familiar with the general holocaust picture of events that took place.
