43 pages • 1 hour read
Ian SerraillierThe Silver Sword
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1956A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
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Important Quotes
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BetaChapters 21-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “Orders”
Kurt goes to speak to his wife in the kitchen of the farmhouse but finds the Burgomaster there. He tells Kurt that the Polish refugees he is housing must return to Poland. Kurt tells the Burgomaster the story of the children’s Swiss mother and their father giving the silver sword to Jan, presenting the small sword as proof of their story. The Burgomaster is unmoved, believing that the story is probably fabricated and that the children will not be accepted into Switzerland. The Burgomaster speaks with Edek but is unmoved by their story. He says that a truck will arrive for them the next day.
Chapter 22 Summary: “The Farmer Hits on a Plan”
Kurt goes to milk the cows as he ponders how to help the children avoid being deported back to Poland. Finally, he is struck with an idea and instructs the children to help him pull two huge bags from the barn that contain two canoes. He patches them as best as he can and repairs the paddles.
The children paddle off in them early the next morning. Frau Wolff packs some food for them, and the couple waves the children off, giving them directions to follow the current towards the Danube and to watch for protruding rocks and American scouts. Once they have set off they discover that Ludwig, the Wolffs’ dog, has snuck aboard Jan and Edek’s canoe. Jan is thrilled, even though the dog weighs down the canoe dangerously.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Dangerous Waters”
The canoes continue down the river. The moon, which had been hidden behind clouds, comes out as they are passing through a village. Ruth and Bronia’s canoe gets stuck in the archway of a bridge, and an American soldier jumps into the water to try to apprehend them, grabbing the paddle in Ruth’s hand. Ruth lets go of the paddle and the canoe is swept beyond the soldier. Ruth pulls the canoe onto the shore some way down, having no way to control it. At dawn, she spots the paddle, which has drifted down the river and is caught in some bracken. Ruth and Bronia get back into the canoe and paddle through a patch of rapids. They stop to rest and are relieved when the boys and Ludwig catch up with them. Nearby, unbeknownst to the happy children, a truck full of Polish refugees heads back towards Poland.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Joe Wolski”
Joe drives them towards Switzerland, interested to hear about their journey from Warsaw. They occasionally hear noises from the trunk of the truck, which Joe says contains a hyena and a couple of bears. Bronia tells Joe about Jan and Ludwig, who ran away from them during the night. Joe replies that he once met someone like that and insisted that that person rejoin their family. They stop the truck, and Joe reveals Ludwig and Jan tied up in the back. When they reach the mountains of Switzerland, Jan bursts into tears.
Chapter 26 Summary: “News at Last”
Joe convinces the refugee camp on the Swiss border to take the family in. Ruth insists that they should be allowed to sleep near Edek, who is put into the hospital tent. The Swiss authorities will not let the family enter Switzerland without proof that they have relatives in the country. Ruth writes to the Wolffs, asking them to send the sword to them.
The International Tracing Service writes to Bassel, seeking the children’s grandparents. Edek is too sick to move, preventing the children from finding a boat and crossing the lake separating them from Switzerland. The ITS official finds Ruth to tell her the good news: They received a letter from Kurt Wolff, containing the silver sword and details of the children’s journey, as well as a letter from Ruth’s father, Joseph, describing his lost children, his chance meeting with Jan, and a description of the silver sword. Ruth is overcome with emotion. The ITS contacts Joseph by telegram, and Joseph indicates that he will collect his children on the 23, a few days away.
Chapter 27 Summary: “The Storm”
The children stand on the lake’s shore, watching excitedly for the boat bringing Joseph to them. That morning, Joseph had tried to tell Ruth something urgent on the phone, but the line had been too bad for her to understand. They walk around the point, jumping across a small stream. Edek stays on the other side of the stream, still feeling unwell. Ruth instructs him to shelter in an upturned dinghy if it starts raining.
Suddenly, a massive downpour begins. The stream turns into a raging river, and Edek is suddenly gone. Ruth climbs up to where Jan is standing on a rock to try to see Edek and is angry to learn that Jan is looking for Ludwig, who ran away when the downpour began. Ruth angrily yells that Jan cares more about his animals than about her family. Jan decides to put Ludwig out of his mind and helps to look for Edek. They spot Edek in the dinghy in the middle of the lake and find another boat on the shore. Ruth, Bronia, and Jan jump into the boat, rowing out towards Edek.
Chapter 28 Summary: “The Meeting”
Disoriented, Ruth wakes up in an unfamiliar bunk and calls for Edek, Jan, and Bronia. She is shocked and delighted when her father arrives; his boat rescues the children from the middle of the lake. Her father takes her to see the other children. They are all alive; Bronia is sleeping, and Edek is unwell and breathing shallowly. Jan tells Ruth that he saved Edek, whose boat was sinking.
Ruth is delighted and amazed when her mother appears. Jan explains that he lost his treasure box in the lake, except for the silver sword, which he is wearing around his neck. Jan gives the sword to Ruth’s mother, Margrit, in return for her becoming his mother.
Chapter 29 Summary: “The New Beginning”
An international children’s village is established for war orphans in a small Swiss town. Joseph and Margrit Balicki become the house parents of the Polish house, which is home to 16 orphans as well as their own children and Jan, who becomes part of the family.
Edek spends months in a hospital. He gradually regains his strength, eventually going to Zurich to study engineering. Jan takes longer to readjust; he continues stealing from the other houses in the village and listens only to Ruth. He settles down after spending more time with the local animals. Bronia adjusts quickly; she continues to draw. Ruth takes some time to recover but eventually studies teaching and returns to the international children’s village with her French husband. They have two children of their own.
Margrit’s prized possession is the silver sword, which she keeps in a velvet-lined box.
Chapters 21-29 Analysis
The Importance of Family is the key theme of the novel’s final chapters. Jan’s loyalty to his adoptive family is tested when Ludwig, his beloved dog, takes off into the woods at the same moment that Edek is swept into the lake. Jan opts to help Ruth and Bronia push the boat into the lake, a decision which ultimately saves Edek’s life, as Jan saves Edek after Ruth and Bronia collapse: “the water was nearly up to his neck. So I pulled him over the side into our boat—two seconds before his turned over and sank” (99). His decision to help Edek, even though it means abandoning his beloved dog, illustrates Jan’s maturity, as implied by Serraillier: “in that moment of decision Jan began to grow up” (97). Jan’s maturity is also illustrated in his resilience and acceptance of losing his beloved box of treasures when he saves Edek.
By the end of the novel, the definition of family has expanded to include not only biological family, but the families forged through shared trauma. Through the sacrifices Jan makes to save Edek, his role in the family is solidified: “Ruth reached out her arms to Jan and gave him a hug. ‘You ought to be made an admiral at once,’ she said” (99). Ruth’s gratitude for Jan’s help is clear. Shortly after this, Jan is formally inducted into the family when he symbolically gifts the silver sword, the only one of his treasures he did not lose in the lake, to Margrit, his new mother: “‘This was the most precious of all my treasures,’ he said. ‘Joseph gave it to me, but it’s yours now. You can keep it forever if you’ll be my mother’” (100). With the Balicki family reunited at last, Jan becomes an official member, enjoying parental protection for the first time since the war began. The fact that the Balickis devote their post-war lives to serving as surrogate parents for Polish orphans solidifies the centrality of family to both the Balickis and the novel. They open their arms to provide family to all the children who lost their families to the war.
The end of the novel depicts the long-term fallout from Trauma, Displacement, and Destruction During and After World War II. Snatches of correspondence received at the German/French/Swiss refugee camp illustrate the scale and pain of displacement experienced by European soldiers and civilians: “‘Our home was bombed while I was serving in Africa and I believe my younger daughter survived, but I have failed to trace her ... My two sons were taken from me in Auschwitz in 1942 and adopted by a German family in Nuremberg. […]’ Inquiries like these arrived by every post” (92). As well as emphasizing the mass displacement of soldiers and civilians through the six-year conflict, these snippets also show the ongoing trauma of countless individuals and families. Serraillier reminds readers, through the mass of correspondence, of the Balickis’ incredible luck at being reunited. They represent the lucky few who rebuilt their families after the war ended. Millions of the European civilians and soldiers who lost parents, grandparents, children, siblings, partners, and friends would never reunite with them or even learn of their fates—including many of the children to whom Joseph and Margrit serve as parents at the war orphans’ house.
Resilience and Determination in the Face of Immense Hardship is also further explored in these chapters through the children’s determined persistence through countless obstacles. Ruth’s confidence and bravery are emphasized as she determinedly steers herself and her sister to safety and towards Switzerland, skillfully evading the Burgomaster and the American troops when they are escaping in the Wolffs’ canoe: “Now and then a boulder loomed up, and she knew that if they struck it they would be dashed to pieces. But a quick dip of the paddle at the right moment was enough to shoot them safely past” (82). Edek’s resilience is especially admirable given his obvious sickness; as was the case in Poland and the camp on the border, when Edek arrives in Switzerland, doctors worry that he might die of his tuberculosis: “for the first month or two the doctors despaired of his life” (101). However, Edek’s determination to live and recover is clear: “the will to live was strong in him and he grew better” (101). Drawing strength from his parents and biological and adopted siblings, Edek finds a way to persevere through seemingly impossible conditions. In the wake of the physical, social, and psychological destruction of the war, resilience, determination, and family love provide hope for recovery.
