The Lost Childhood

November 1, 1989
Dispossessed early in WW II by the Russians, Nir's affluent Polish family endured the German occupation and persecution as Jews by pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic Ukrainians. After the father's murder, the 11-year-old author, his mother and 16-year-old sister escaped deportation to extermination camps by developing skills of rapid improvisation, and using forged identities and disguises. A tale of hair-raising adventure and countless hardships, this is also a candid, moving and sometimes funny account of a sensitive boy's crisis-dominated adolescence, which, while fraught with normal longings, included his serving as a courier in the fetid sewer system during the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising. Russian liberators who freed the family from slave labor on a German estate, then accused them of collaboration with the Nazis, forcing the three to flee once again--this time back to Poland.

August 1, 2007
Adult/High School-Nir was nine years old in 1939 when his father was shot by the Nazis, and over the next few years, many more of his relatives, friends, and neighbors disappeared under similar circumstances. In order to survive, Nir's mother took him and his sister to Warsaw and disguised them as Catholics. Days were spent in constant fear. By 14, he had learned about blackmail, sex, the tense relationship between Germans and Poles, and the obvious cruelty of war. He joined the Polish Armed Forces to help with the uprising, and in the final year of the war, he and his family became prisoners of war at a German work camp and later at a German farm, still disguising their Jewish identities. Nir posits that their survival was part perseverance and part luck, and firmly believes that forgiveness of the Germans is not possible. How can it be, when one witnessed all manner of human cruelty, from neighbors betraying one another to Nazis shooting innocent children in the street? The book was first published in 1989 (Harcourt); with this edition, Nir's story is complete for the first time. It includes passages more appropriate to mature readers not in the edition adapted for young readers (Scholastic, 2000) as well as newly updated front matter."Jennifer Waters, Red Deer Public Library, Alberta, Canada"

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