The book of Aron

Description

Aron, the narrator, is an engaging if peculiar young boy whose family is driven from the countryside into the Warsaw Ghetto. As his family is slowly stripped away from him, Aron and a handful of boys and girls risk their lives, smuggling and trading things through the "quarantine walls" to keep their people alive, hunted all the while by blackmailers and by Jewish, Polish, and German police (not to mention the Gestapo). Eventually Aron is "rescued" by Janusz Korczak, a Jewish-Polish doctor and advocate of children's rights famous throughout prewar Europe who, once the Nazis swept in, was put in charge of the ghetto orphanage. In the end, of course, he and his staff and all the children are put on a train to Treblinka, but has Aron managed to escape, to spread word about the atrocities, as Korczak hoped he would?

Description

Warsaw, Poland, 1939. My mother and father named me Aron, but my father said they should have named me What Have You Done or What Were You Thinking. Aron is a nine-year-old Polish Jew, and a troublemaker. As the walls go up around the ghetto in Warsaw, as the lice and typhus rage, food is stolen and even Jewish police betray their people, Aron smuggles from the other side to survive. In a place where no one thinks of anyone but himself, the only exception is Doctor Korczak; children's rights activist and embattled orphanage director. They call the Doctor a hero. Aron is not a hero. He is not special or selfless or spirited. He is ordinary. He is willing to do what the Doctor will not.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The book of AronQuercus Publishing2015-01-01
• Book of AronMcClelland & Stewart2015-01-01
• The book of Aron2015-01-01
• The book of Aron2016-01-01
• The Book of AronEmblem Editions2016-05-03
• The Book of AronPaperbackVintage2016-05-03