The Second World War is over. Eva, the protagonist of the epistolary novel "Back home - why?" is one of the women whose husband has come home from the war and she is unable to oppose him in any way. Unable to cope with his violence and cruelty she confides in her diary. Always striving to keep up the facade for her children and to excuse the strange behaviour of their father, she writes freely in her diary about the disgust and the fear she feels. These diary entries are interrupted by letters to her friend Lilli, in which the author recalls Eva's previous, happy life. Almost unnoticeably Eva's diary entries come together with her letters at the end of World War II to merge into a tragic final chord.