Ian Serraillier The Silver Sword

This is story of a Polish Family and what happened to them during the Second World War. They lived in Warsaw and the father, Joseph Balicki, was the headmaster of a school.
He and his swiss wife, Margrit, had three children. Ruth was about 13, Edek was 11 and Bronia was 3.
Josef Balicki was sent to prison in the mountains by Nazis, but fortunately he escaped by the luggage lift. Joseph returned home, but no one from his family was there. Their house was a hill of ruins, in ruins he found their Silver Sword and gave it to one boy. Joseph gave him that sword and told him that if he find his children he would tell them, that he was going to Switzerland to find their mother. He didn’t know that his children were still in Warsaw. They tried to get to Switzerland too. One night they got to the train, which went to Germany. In Germany, they got out of the train and then they went by walk. Once they found a Bavarian farm and the farmers hid them for two weeks. They were helping them a lot, but after two weeks they had to go. The farmer gave them the canoes and they fetched them together. Then their journey continued on the water. They had to go down the river in canoes and on another day they went by walk, but unfortunately Edek became sick. They stopped the firs lorry. American soldiers were in this lorry, but one of them named Joe Wolski, was born in Poland so he should speak polish. They tooked them to refugee camp near Lake Constance. They spent there a lot of time, till Edek got OK. The camp officer sent information about them to I.T.S. to Switzerland. One day they went to Geneva Lake and they wanted to get through it. Suddenly it started to rain and there was a big storm. Their boat turned over and they couldn’t remember anything. When they woke up, they were in safe in their family house with their mother and father.
Then they started to live another life in Switzerland. When Ruth grew up, she went to Zurich university and then she became a teacher.

Zdroje:

Knizka od vyd. Longman -