Extraordinary true stories of the author's teenaged years in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Recipient of the 1991 PEN/Martha Albrand Special Citation for Nonfiction; Winner of a Christopher Award

This collection of extraordinary true stories—including nine stories new to this expanded edition— illuminates the experiences of a young Polish boy before World War II, through the gathering storm of Nazism, into the death camps, to poignant reunions many years later. Here we watch young Bernard break curfew to secure a rare chicken for the High Holidays—only to see it given to the Christian janitor because it is not kosher; we meet Alexandra, a Polish resistance fighter who enlists the teenaged Bernard in the cause but who perishes while he survives; and we share Bernard's fear as he spends one very uncomfortable night—hours after his liberation—in the seemingly sympathetic home of the parents of a young SS officer.