Guernica Editions

In 1941, twelve-year-old Rivke Rosenfeld lives in the Warsaw Ghetto, where she witnesses German soldiers slashing her grandfather's beard from his face. Her anger compels her to secretly write her stories and her memories in the margins of a book of fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen. When Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum, historian and founder of the Underground Archive--a written compilation of Jewish life experiences in the Ghetto--hears Rivke tell one of her stories, he is so impressed that he asks her to contribute her diary to this Archive, and Rivke agrees, imagining her words rising up from the ground on wings.

I hold my breath, knowing that he will shoot me and possibly everyone in this room when my diary and my pen are discovered. Dr. Ringelblum, Batya, Gelle, Estera, your names will be known. They will kill you, too! And Gittel and Ruchel will be found out! The children's library at Leszno 67 will be known! The Nowolipki 68 kitchen will be known! What will happen to the children? I force myself to form the most important question in my head--what will happen to the Secret Archive?