The Silver Sword

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Found this on a list of children's classics, read with daughter (11). The story of a Polish family, broken apart in WWII. The first several chapters are abou One day while searching the rubble of his home, he finds a small silver sword that he’d given his wife for her birthday. Joseph notices a ragged little boy watching him. The boy is holding a kitten, and Joseph walks over and asks its name. The boy says the kitten has no name. He will not tell Joseph his own name. Ruth, Bronia, and Jan leave in the spring and head to Posen searching for Edek. They find that he has now been sent to a camp for children with tuberculosis; however, when they reach it they learn he ran away. They press on to Kolina for food; when Ruth is caught up in a scramble for food at the soup kitchen, she is saved by a hand grabbing her and sees it is Edek. He looks older and more haggard than Ruth remembered. Across the water are the gloriously green hills of Switzerland and the majestic Alps behind them. Ruth gasps; she has never seen anything so incredible. She asks if Jan can come out, and Joe complies. Jan has no more fight in him, and when he sees the mountains he bursts into tears. After a long time, a goods train finally rumbles by; Joseph tells Jan to remember his promise, and that he will not forget him.

He remains with the neighbor, Mrs. Krause, for a few days. She tells him to go find his wife, because the children are surely gone. Joseph cannot bear to leave.the children were given blankets and straw-filled mattresses and ushered into a dark corner of the hall. Here a seedy-looking flag and a scribbled notice on the wall indicated that they were in “Poland”. […] As far as they could see, the whole floor was carpeted with mattresses. They threw down theirs where they stood – in the no-man’s-land between “Poland” and “Yugoslavia.” The Silver Sword is a children's novel published in 1956 by British author Ian Serraillier. It is widely considered to be a classic of children’s literature.

Jan is torn. He sees Ludwig in the distance, but he realizes for the first time what he has in Ruth. This is the moment he begins to grow up: he leaves Ludwig and jumps in the boat. Although the novel was published in 1956, it remains a very exciting adventure for young readers and I highly recommend it. A story crafted around real life examples. This novel tells the story of three Polish siblings (Ruth, Edek and Bronia) search for their parents, after their schoolmaster father is tossed in jail for hanging Hitler's picture facing the wall. He escapes from prison to find his house destroyed by fire and his family gone, and meets a streetwise orphan, named Jan. Ruth manages to find shelter, becoming a "mother" to her siblings, and they decide to go to Switzerland to find their remaining relatives, crossing Poland and Germany along the way. Jan joins them on their quest, helping them survive in a world gone mad, even as the family is separated and reunited along the way. Along the way, they are assisted by generous, caring people: soldiers, farmers, etc. World War II is over. Three siblings---Ruth, Bronia, and Edek---along with their new friend, Jan, are on their way to Switzerland to find their father. The home of the three siblings in Poland has been destroyed by the war, and their mother and father were both taken away by the Germans. Jan has been orphaned and is living on the streets, making his way by hook or crook.

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Ruth visits the Russian control post and asks for food, clothes, paper, pencils, and help in finding Edek. The sentry, Ivan, is kind and brings them as many supplies as he can. Jan, who harbors a fervent hatred of soldiers, scuffles with him, and Jan's wooden box of treasures breaks to reveal the silver sword. Ruth recognizes it and begins to cry. Jan tells her of meeting her father, and Ruth decides they must leave Warsaw for Switzerland. First, though, they will stop by the camp where Edek was sent. In the summer they leave the city for the woods and Edek constructs a house with branches. Food is plentiful because the peasants are kind. Edek becomes one of the chief smugglers; he is calling at a house in a neighboring village when the secret police arrive and find cheese sewn into the lining of his coat. They take him away, and for two years there is no news of him. At the ruins of his home, Joseph finds a silver letter opener in the shape of a small sword. He also meets a young boy there carrying a wood box. Eventually he befriends the boy, Jan, who shows Joseph how and where to safely jump a train to Switzerland. Before he leaves, he gives the silver sword/letter opener to Jan and asks him to tell his children, should he run into them, that their father has gone to their grandparents in Switzerland to find their mother, and to follow him there. Jan puts the sword in his wooden box for safekeeping. How could we possibly imagine that it was right to show children of all people this terrible chapter of human history? [...] Significantly none came from children, by whom this story is remembered with gratitude because it treated them as responsible citizens who could be trusted with a frank account of what the war and its by-products, like juvenile delinquency and refugees, was really about.” ( 1958)

Of course, the children are never anxious or scared or sad: "Edek was always cheerful -- because he was always busy." (I feel like this is supposed to be a moral lesson...) When they return to their cellar to find it looted, "Patiently and without despair Ruth set to work to repair the damage." It's bland and boring af because there's no sense of struggle. The entire book is basically a series of unconnected adventures (kayaking! sleeping in hay barns! looting trains!) as these pathologically jolly children make their way across war-torn Europe in late 1944 through to the spring of 1945. The children made then made their way south through Germany. Edek, whose health was steadily worsening with tuberculosis, was arrested while following Jan – who had been stealing food from several American trains bringing supplies to the troops. Both boys were prosecuted by the military tribunal, but Edek was cleared of any crimes whilst Jan led a spirited defence, claiming that certain American troops were equally guilty of stealing from the conquered Germans. Nonetheless Jan was sentenced to a week's detention. Upon his release the children continued south and were taken in by a Bavarian farmer. All of the children were put to work on the farm except Edek, who assisted the farmer's wife with light chores. I bought The Silver Sword on my dad's recommendation, after he mentioned he'd read it many years ago in Secondary school. It made a lasting impression on him, and is a book he'll remember reading for the rest of his life. Arizpe, Evelyn. (2021). “Introduction to Special Issue on Children’s Books”. Migration Studies 9(2). 311–329 Whilst in this passage Joseph defers to Jan’s knowledge and experience, the perception of children’s ages changes throughout the story, according to whether the story is being told from their perspective or through adult eyes. In an Alice-like process of shrinking, Jan’s presence is diminished once more when viewed through the eyes of a British soldier: “A boy stepped out of the crowd, one of the thousands of urchins that lived?about in the ruins here – about eleven or twelve years old, I should say, but you can never tell with these kids, they’re so undernourished” (1956, p.83). Philip Nel’s observation, that “The precarity of displacement amplifies the vulnerabilities inherent to childhood, making young people feel their liminality more acutely” accurately describes the situation faced by the young protagonists of The Silver Sword, in which the naturally blurred boundaries between childhood and adulthood are problematised by the need to act and behave with maturity beyond their years ( 2018, p.359). This juxtaposition is particularly jarring in the portrayal of Ruth. Here she is described by an army officer: “She’s a remarkable girl, quiet and self-assured, with the most striking eyes – they have a deep serenity, a sense of purpose and moral authority quite unmistakable. No wonder they look up to her as a mother, and a leader, too” (1956, p.86).Shortly after Joseph was taken to the prison camp, German soldiers had broken into the family house and taken his wife away, after the Germans had called for 1 million foreign workers to be taken to their country for the war effort. Edek had fired shots at the van in a bid to stop them from getting away. Ruth had admonished Edek for his foolishness and decided that they had to escape to avoid being captured or killed, so the children climbed along the rooftops of the adjacent houses and watched from a distance as their house was blown up by the Nazis. Found this on a list of children's classics, read with daughter (11). The story of a Polish family, broken apart in WWII. The first several chapters are about the father, who escapes from prison and heads for relatives in Switzerland after returning to a rubble-strewn Warsaw. While there, he doesn't find his family but does find a young boy, who takes a Silver Sword (really a letter opener) as a token to prove who he is should he find the other children. The rest of the story is about his three children, left alone after the mother is taken to a detention camp. They find the boy with the sword and make their way to Switzerland also, among many adventures. As the superintendent comments that he wishes all cases could end as happily as hers, she runs out and gleefully informs the others. The family cries and exults together. In the chaos of World War II, Ruth, Edek and Bronia are separated from their parents, and left alone to fend for themselves, hiding from the Nazis in the ruins of their city. But when they meet orphan Jan, who treasures a paperknife in the shape of a silver sword that he was given by an escaped prisoner of war, it becomes a powerful symbol of hope. The children realise that the escapee was their father, and the silver sword a message that he is alive and searching for them. Together with Jan they begin a dangerous journey across Europe to the safety of Switzerland where they hope to reunite with their parents.

I like this book because it tells you all about the cruel things that the Nazis did and then you follow the amazing aventure of Ruth Edek and Bronia which make a friend called Jan who helps them grt to the journey to Switzerland to find their missing parents. Jan then helped Joseph find a goods train going towards Germany, on which Joseph made his escape from Poland to Switzerland. The novel tells the poignant story of a group of children’s search for their parents in World War II ravaged Europe. The story revolves around the siblings Ruth, Edek and Bronia, and their friend Jan – a resourceful but eccentric, street-smart kid. its an amazing and intriguing story that fact and fiction Ian is an amazing writer and has lots of determination like Joseph in a way

Ruth sees where they left Edek, but he is no longer there, nor is the small boat she told him to take cover under if it rained. Ruth and Bronia also realize Jan is nowhere to be found, but Bronia soon observes him on a small embankment behind her. She calls and asks if he can see Edek, but he only cares for Ludwig. Born in London, Serraillier was educated at Brighton College, and took his degree at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He became an English teacher, first at World War II. It was during this period that his first published work appeared, in the form of poetry for both adults and children. In 1946 his first children's novel was published. It was followed by several more adventure stories of treasure and spies. His best known work, The Silver Sword, was published in 1956 and has become a classic, bringing to life the story of four refugee children and their search for their parents in the chaos of Europe immediately after World War II.