Summary

Chapter 5 sees start of 1942, and the British had not yet come to liberate Krakow, as Yanek’s father had promised. Yanek was no longer allowed to leave the house at all, as they were rounding up more and more Jews in the ghetto. One day, the German soldiers and Jewish ghetto police—the Judenrat—came to raid the apartment, taking all money, valuables, and other possessions like radios. Many of Yanek’s neighbors were taken away, but his family and the others living in his apartment were spared. Deeply shaken by the event, he persuaded his parents to move into a pigeon coop he had found on the roof, and the family fit bars on the access door to ensure no soldiers could ever find them.

In Chapter 6, Yanek and his parents were now living in the pigeon coop on the roof, and...