Frozen Journey

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This text is an extract from the book “The Silver Sword” written by Ian Serraillier in 1956.
The book was very popular many years ago, and over one million copies have been printed. Ian Serraillier wrote a lot of books, both for children and adults.

The story is about the three siblings; Ruth, her little brother Edek and their little sister Bronia. When Germany attacked Poland in September 1939 the German soldiers bombed Warsaw, the capital of Poland, where the three siblings lived with their Polish father and mother. The mother who was Swiss-borned was taken away by the Nazis, and their father was put in prison.
Ruth and her siblings decided to hide, they lived in a cellar during the wintertime and in the woods in the summer. When Edek in 1943 was captured by the Nazis, Ruth was left alone with about 15 other homeless children who she looked after. When the World War II was over in 1945, Ruth fortunately made contact with Edek again. He was very thin and exhausted after his experiences. Against all odds Edek decided to go with Ruth, Bronia and one of the children Ruth had looked after, to start looking for their mother.

On their way back towards Berlin they travelled on a train full of refugees. When the night came it grew colder, and coal freezing dust was trickled from the floorboards. All refugees in the carriage crowed to hold the warmth. The siblings were the only children in the carriage and they were sitting at the end of the truck, far away from the stove which helped the others to keep warm. It was the time for story-telling and they told each other many tales. One man told them about a long journey on the roof of a train.

“’I can beat that for a yarn’, said Edek”.
“---“
‘I’ll tell you if you’ll give me a peep at the fire’, he said. ‘And my sisters, too. And Jan. We’re freezing out here.’”

Ungrudgingly the people nearest to the stove made a way for them to get there. After that Edek started to tell everyone in the carriage about his terrible time with the Nazis. He told them that he hade been caught smuggling cheese into Warsaw. After that he had been sent to Germany to slave on the land. He had tried to escape a few time but they always fetched him back. It wasn’t until the winter in 1944, when the war turned against the Nazis, that he was able to run away. To hide Edek hid under a train going to Poland. To hold on, he had to lie on the top of the axle and stretch his legs and arms out.
The train were bumping and it made him a little bit dizzy. Besides that, the train ran into a puddle. And that became his rescue. Edek was soaked to the skin and when the water froze, it made him stiff as an icicle. He couldn’t let go, even if he wanted to.
When the train stopped at last, Edek shouted like he had never done before, and fortunately the station-master heard him and came to his rescue.

When Edek had spoken, everyone was staring at each other and they moved so Edek and his company could come as close to the stove as possible, and a printer threw him a crust of bread.
Afterwards when they were going to sleep Ruth whispered to Edek;

“’Was it really true?’
‘Yes it was true’, said Edek.
‘Nothing like that must ever happen to you again’, said Ruth”.



My own thoughts about the Frozen Journey
This is a terrible story with a happy ending. The good thing with this story was that Ruth found Edek again, it was a proof of that even awful things can end happily.
It´s hard to imagine how it was to be a child during the war. To know that: “you must manage this all by yourself” without any support from parents or other adults.
I think it must feel very tough to be forced to grow up like an adult when you’re just a small child. At the same time, I don’t think that someone who wasn’t t...