The Silver Sword

“He would sit around the hut, thinking of his family and staring at the few tattered photos of them that he had been allowed to keep.”

Joseph’s love for his family and desire to return to them is shown through his staring at the photos of them. That they are “tattered” implies that they are often handled by Joseph, further illustrating his pain and sadness at being forcibly separated from them. The Importance of Family is referred to as an important theme here.

“Joseph drew back the elastic. He heard the padlock on the flap being unlocked. The flap slid aside. The guard had not seen Joseph when the stone struck him in the middle of the forehead and knocked him down. The floor shook as he tumbled. He groaned and rolled over. Joseph must act quickly, before the guard came to his senses. He knew the guard kept his bunch of keys in his greatcoat pocket. He must get hold of them without delay. He must lift the guard till they were within reach. He took a hook and line from under his bed. He had made the line by cutting thin strips from his blanket and plaiting them together. The hook was a bent four-inch nail that he had smuggled in from his hut.”

Joseph’s escape, which is ingenious and thoroughly planned with carefully fashioned tools, like the slingshot and the hook, shows him to be both intelligent and determined. Joseph’s escape—motivated by his desire to return to his family—contributes to the themes of The Importance of Family and Resilience and Determination in the Face of Immense Hardship.

“It took Joseph four and a half weeks to walk to Warsaw.”

Once again, the lengths that Joseph goes to be reunited with his wife and children illustrates the extent of his determination; this is a defining element of Joseph’s character. For Joseph, his determination and resilience cannot be separated from the importance of his family to him.

“There was hardly a street he recognized and not an undamaged building anywhere.”

This passage illustrates the Trauma, Displacement, and Destruction During and After World War II. Joseph is shocked and disoriented at the damage caused through the first years of the war. Serraillier uses Joseph’s perspective to emphasize the extent of the destruction of the city by juxtaposing Joseph’s memories with Warsaw’s current state of destruction.

“They quickly made their new home as comfortable as they could. Edek, who could climb like a monkey, scaled three storeys of a bombed building to fetch a mattress and some curtains. The mattress he gave to Ruth and Bronia. The curtains made good sheets. On wet days they could be used over the hole in the wall to keep the rain out. With floorboards he made two beds, chairs and a table. With bricks from the rubble he built a wall to divide the cellar into two rooms, one to live in and one to sleep in. He stole blankets from a Nazi supply dump, one for each of them.”

Edek is a highly adaptive and inventive individual, fashioning shelter and comforts for his family from the ruins of Warsaw. He is not only ingenious but resilient; he quickly accepts their new situation and sets about improving their living situation rather than succumbing to despair. Edek embodies the theme of Resilience and Determination in the Face of Immense Hardship, which characterizes the Balicki family throughout their struggle.

“Then Ruth started a school. She invited other lost children, of Bronia’s age and a little older. While Edek was out at work or finding food, she told them stories in the cellar. When she ran out of stories, the others took their turn. She made them speak out clearly, without mumbling.”

Like Edek, Ruth finds ways to live productively in their radically transformed and newly impoverished life. She not only helps her own family but other children by providing them with structure and education. While Edek provides them with the material means of survival, Ruth provides psychological support. This is significant given Ruth’s youth and illustrates her resilience through hardship as well as her determination to improve life for Bronia and the other children. Once again, this refers to the theme of Resilience and Determination in the Face of Immense Hardship.

“The boy took the wooden box and smiled. Everyone wanted to look inside, but he wouldn’t undo it. However, he told them his name. It was Jan.”

This is a moment of dramatic irony: The reader realizes that Jan is the child to whom Joseph gave directions for his children to travel to Switzerland. But the Balicki children do not yet know that Jan has met their father, nor that his wooden box contains their family’s silver sword-shaped letter opener. This moment foreshadows the children’s journey to Switzerland, which drives the narrative’s plot.

“But he remembered two things—the determination on Joseph’s face, and the name of the country he was bound for, Switzerland.”

Jan’s strongest memory of Joseph is his determinedly set face as he sets off to find his wife. Through the novel, the reader learns that this is a trait that he shares with his three children, who face innumerable hardships on their long journey from Poland to Switzerland. This refers to the theme of Resilience and Determination in the Face of Immense Hardship.

“Long after Jan fell asleep, Ruth lay awake, thinking. Edek had been traced. Her father had escaped from prison and been seen alive and free. How different must their future be now! But it was confusing—so much had happened so quickly.”

This passage shows the Importance of Family to the Balickis. Ruth immediately shapes her and Bronia’s plans around being reunited with her brother, Edek, and their parents, who she hopes are in Switzerland. Ruth’s decision to change their future initiates the journey to Switzerland, which drives the plot.

“The fields were littered with the debris of war—derelict tanks, shell cases, dug-outs, lines and twists of rusty barbed wire. In some places peasants were digging, but most of the land had gone out of cultivation as there was no one to attend to it.”

Serraillier draws the reader’s attention to the extent of the damage and debris left by the war in Poland. The enormous clean-up of the European landscape is referred to, as well as the food scarcity that affected millions in the post-war years, caused by disruption to the lives and properties of farmers. The destruction illustrates the theme of Trauma, Displacement, and Destruction During and After World War II, particularly the persisting destruction of the post-war period.

“‘Those children insist on going to Switzerland—it’s their promised land—and we’ve no power to detain them,’ Mrs. Borowicz had said. And when the doctor had remarked that Edek was too ill and would die on the way, she had disagreed. ‘He believes his father’s at the other end, waiting. Highly unlikely, of course, but there’s a sort of fierce resolution about the boy—about all of them—which saves them from despair, and it’s better than any medicine we can give him. Dope and drugs can’t equal that. We must let them go.’”

The Importance of Family is illustrated in the rejuvenating effect of Edek’s belief that his father is alive and waiting for them. It is clear that the Balicki family loves each other deeply and sincerely, and their efforts are channeled wholly into their reunion. Resilience and Determination in the Face of Immense Hardship is also referred to as a theme. Edek perseveres despite his life-threatening tuberculosis, which makes his journey taxing and dangerous.

“He was sixteen now, but did not look two and a half years older. So different from the Edek she remembered. His cheeks were pinched and hollow, his eyes as unnaturally bright as Jan’s had once been, and he kept coughing.”

Edek’s appearance alludes to the harsh conditions in which he was made to live and work as an enslaved laborer for the Germans. These conditions—underfed, overworked, and inadequately clothed—undoubtedly contributed to his contracting tuberculosis, a disease that almost killed him. Edek’s implied and ongoing trauma forms a key component of the theme of Trauma, Displacement, and Destruction During and After World War II.

“The water froze on me. It made an icicle of me. When at last the train drew into a station, I was encased in ice from head to foot. I could hear Polish voices on the platform. I knew we must have crossed the frontier. My voice was the only part of me that wasn’t frozen, so I shouted. The station-master came and chopped me down with an axe. He wrapped me in blankets and carried me to the boiler-house to thaw out. Took me hours to thaw out.”

Once again, Edek refers to the trauma he suffered through the wartime years, in this case in his escape from a German forced labor camp, which almost killed him. Edek’s determination is apparent in his determination to escape imprisonment to return to his family.

“They did not seem to notice that everything round them had been destroyed, that buildings that had stood for generations had been wiped out.”

The children do not notice the destruction of Berlin, which illustrates that they are acclimated to seeing wreckage and ruin. Through their indifference, Serraillier emphasizes the extent of the widespread destruction of Europe through World War II. Furthermore, the destruction of buildings “that had stood for generations” reminds readers of the tragic loss of architecture, art, and culture in many historical European cities, like Berlin, due to extensive and devastating bombing and combat. This refers to the destruction element of the theme of Trauma, Displacement, and Destruction During and After World War II.

“Now it’s more like a moon landscape, craters everywhere, mountains of rubble. The Reichstag and the Kaiser’s Palace are roofless, Unter den Linden piled with wreckage. And the queerest things keep happening. How’s this for one?—I’ve been attacked by a chimpanzee.”

Serraillier refers again to the extent of the destruction of Berlin’s historic buildings, in the Allied bombing campaigns. Furthermore, Serraillier emphasizes the collapse of normality and everyday infrastructure in the post-war chaos. This is symbolized by the chimpanzee who has escaped the Berlin Zoo and is roaming the streets and attacking people such as Mark, the English officer. The bizarre events only deepen the trauma of those trying to figure out how to live in the aftermath of the war.

“Jan looked at Frau Wolff, quietly intent on her knitting; then at the farmer, whose eyes had a gleam of sadness he had not seen before; then back at the photo. That there could be any connection between these homely folk and the soldier in the photo was beyond his understanding.”

Jan experiences cognitive dissonance when he learns that one of the Wolffs’ sons fought and died in Warsaw. Jan thinks of Nazi soldiers, who destroyed so much of Poland and killed his parents, as uniformly evil. However, the Wolffs are a kind and compassionate couple who care for Jan and his adoptive family. This causes Jan to confront his beliefs about German soldiers, and to consider that perhaps immoral actions can be carried out by moral individuals when they take part in war.

“The index of missing children was growing all the time, as each day brought more and more inquiries. ‘Is my child dead? … 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. Can you, etc. etc.’ … Inquiries like these arrived by every post.”

Serraillier reminds the reader that the Balicki family represents the many families who became separated through the course of the war. The excerpts from correspondence to the refugee camp serve as a reminder that, unlike the Balickis, most families would never be reunited. Millions of soldiers and civilians were killed in Europe during World War II, and many of their families would never know of their fate. Through these desperate letters, Serraillier shows the lifelong suffering that would result from the Trauma, Displacement, and Destruction During and After World War II.

“Herr Wolff’s letter contained as much of the story of the family as he had managed to piece together, as well as details of their plans for getting to Switzerland. He had found the sword the very day they left and had sent it off at once to the I.T.S. with the letter. Ruth’s letter to him, written from the camp, had evidently gone astray, for she had no reply to it till weeks later. The other letter, from her father, Joseph Balicki, bore a January date. In it he described the children and their circumstances up to the time when he had last seen them. He also referred to his escape from Zakyna, his unsuccessful attempt to find his family, the meeting with Jan and how he had given him the sword, and his long journey to Switzerland. And now the miracle had worked.”

The amazing fact of the family’s reunion is foreshadowed when the ITS successfully makes contact with Joseph on behalf of Ruth, Edek, Jan, and Bronia. Furthermore, the silver sword is further established as a symbol of hope for the Balicki family’s reconnection, as it serves as proof to the ITS of the children’s story and enables the Balickis to be reunited at last.

“He seemed to be trying to tell her something of importance, but after several unsuccessful attempts the line went dead, and that was the end of that. What was it he was trying to tell her? How she longed to see him again!”

The storm, which almost takes the lives of the children, is foreshadowed in Joseph’s attempt to tell Ruth “something of importance.” The ominous loss of contact with Joseph at a key moment emphasizes the peril that the children are still in, even though they have located their parents.

“‘Can you see him from up there, Jan?’ Ruth called. ‘He wriggled out of my arms and got away,’ Jan cried, and he was looking inland. ‘I mean Edek—can you see his boat?’ But Jan didn't answer. He was thinking of Ludwig. Ruth ran up to him. She wanted to shake him to pieces for being so selfish.”

Jan’s loyalty to Ludwig the dog over Edek is illustrated in the fact that he is looking for the dog, rather than looking out at the lake for Edek. An important turning point occurs when Jan decides to stop looking for Ludwig and instead focuses on helping Ruth save Edek. Jan becomes a member of their family because of this decision, which saves Edek’s life.

“Joseph gave it to me, but it’s yours now. You can keep it forever if you’ll be my mother.”

Jan gives Margrit the silver sword, his only remaining treasure after he lost the others while saving Edek. Jan’s status as an honorary family member is confirmed through his request for Margrit to be his mother, which she agrees to. The silver sword symbolizes hope and reunion for the Balicki family; here, it comes to symbolize the Balickis’ expanding family of adopted war orphans like Jan in addition to their biological children.

“Now they had joined together to build a village where abandoned and orphaned children could forget the misery of war, where their minds and bodies could be healed, and they could learn to live in peace. Here at last they would find a real home, with no fear of being driven out among strangers again.”

Displacement and trauma, part of the broader theme Trauma, Displacement, and Destruction During and After World War II, is alluded to in the war orphans, who lost their parents through the devastation of the war. A hopeful end is achieved despite this tragedy in the establishment of the orphans’ village, where the children can find sanctuary and safety after the trauma of the war.

“Edek was not so fortunate. Many of the children admitted to the village showed signs of tuberculosis. But hardship and lack of good food had made Edek much more delicate than most. He had to be sent away to a sanatorium, and for the first month or two the doctors despaired of his life. But the will to live was strong in him and he grew better. After eighteen months he returned to his family. Another six months of open-air life in the mountains made him fit enough to go to Zürich and study engineering. He had always wanted to be an engineer.”

Edek continues to be defined by his resilience and determination in his recovery from his illness and pursuit of a degree in engineering. His success despite the significant challenge of severe tuberculosis confirms his embodiment of the theme of Resilience and Determination in the Face of Immense Hardship.