Twelve-year-old Paige Noble awak­ens in a hos­pi­tal room in Chica­go, 1962. She has no mem­o­ry of the ran­dom gang vio­lence that has left her injured and orphaned. As she waits for fam­i­ly to come for her, Paige devel­ops a bond with Gladys, a com­fort­ing black nurse’s aide, unaware that Gladys’s son was involved in the crime. Her uncle the charis­mat­ic and a cel­e­brat­ed pho­tog­ra­ph­er Maxwell Noble, is soon locat­ed in Europe and rushed to her side. A glo­be­trot­ter who has indulged in bach­e­lor life, sur­pris­es Paige by embrac­ing his new respon­si­bil­i­ty, begin­ning with the bur­ial of her par­ents. His broth­er and sis­ter-in-law were always intent on pro­tect­ing Paige, but Maxwell allows her to embrace the Jew­ish his­to­ry and her­itage that she was denied. Strug­gling to hide his own long-time obses­sion with Paige’s moth­er, Maxwell shows his orphaned niece the old Jew­ish grave­stones, reveal­ing a fam­i­ly lega­cy begin­ning with the 1915 East­land dis­as­ter on the Chica­go River.

Some years lat­er, Paige dis­cov­ers her moth­er’s hid­den diary and the secrets of the past begin to sur­face. Paige and her uncle embark on a jour­ney to France, retrac­ing events of World War II and the Holo­caust in an effort to find the one remain­ing fam­i­ly mem­ber they might claim.