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by Janet Bond Brill (Author)
They tried to erase her.
Instead, she became a legend.
At just seven years old, Edna Szurek risked everything to smuggle food through holes in the Warsaw Ghetto wall, knowing each step could be her last. By the age of 10, she was the youngest decorated member of the Polish resistance. And by the end of the war, she had defied every Nazi plan for her destruction.
Though she fought armed with a pistol, Edna's true weapons were wit, bravery, and an unshakable love for her sister. Disguised as a Catholic girl, she even earned a medal from Pope Pius XII, who never knew he was honoring a Jewish child who had outsmarted the Reich.
Drawn from over five hours of her firsthand testimony recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation, this powerful memoir traces Edna's impossible journey: from the ashes of a shattered birthday celebration to the brutal reality of a POW camp, escaping the deadly confines of the Warsaw Ghetto to find the hidden safety of a convent sanctuary.
Edna Szurek should not have survived the Holocaust. But she did. And her story will stay with you forever.
A gripping, well-done narrative that does justice to Edna's amazing story. The narrative is moving and vulnerable, reflecting on a terrifying time in history and examining the aftereffects of those experiences on the children who confronted them. Readers will grieve, cheer, and be inspired. - BookLife, Publishers Weekly
