Uprising

After six weeks with the resistance, delivering papers and gathering news from the Germans, Drill tells Lidia how impressed he is by her. He asks her to hide 10 grenades overnight that need to go to Halama, and she agrees to take them home.

At home, Lidia finds Mama praying in the kitchen. She tells her that Ryszard has gone into hiding after Mama heard that he is on a list of names being sought for their connection to the Polish Home Army. She is determined to go to Szucha Alley to the Gestapo headquarters to speak with them. After Lidia fails to stop her, she decides to follow Mama secretly.

Lidia waits outside Szucha Alley for Mama. She plans to throw a grenade into the building after 20 minutes, which will likely get Lidia killed but hopefully cause enough of a distraction for Mama to escape.

While she waits, two officers approach Lidia. They harass her about why she is there. She pulls a notebook from her bag and insists that she is just there to draw. The officer takes her notebook and flips through, finding a picture she drew of Officer Schulz. He laughs, believing that she is there because she has a crush on him. The other officer angrily threatens her, telling her to leave, just as Lidia sees Mama come out of the headquarters.

Lidia beats her mother home and then waits in the kitchen cooking soup. When Mama returns, she tells Lidia that she was successful in “help[ing] them to understand that they were mistaken” (179). Lidia is shocked—Mama did something that no one else had ever been brave enough to do by openly standing up to the Gestapo.

The next day, Lidia is told to take the grenades to the park to meet someone named “Gray.” She hates the idea that she has to ride the trolley to do so and that the park is so public, but she does what she’s told.

On the ride, she sees eight German officers sitting near her. One begins questioning her about her bag and where she is going and then tries to make conversation. She finds an excuse to get off the trolley well before her stop.

Getting off the trolley, Lidia sees an old woman exit with her. The woman asks her to walk her home, and Lidia reluctantly agrees. On the way, they talk about Lidia’s love of the piano. When the woman asks what the piano has taught her, Lidia tells her that “every note matters” (184).

Lidia realizes that she is going to be late, so she asks the woman to wait in a café while Lidia does her errand, and then Lidia promises to come back and help her after. The woman agrees and directs Lidia to a café nearby. When the waiter comes over, the woman speaks to him about Lidia and how “bold” and “smart” she is. The woman introduces herself as “Gray.”

Over the next three months, Lidia continues to work for the resistance, delivering papers. She also starts school again and gets a job as a telephone operator, gathering whatever information she can from the Germans. Ryszard returns and tries to get her to quit the resistance, but she continues to deny that she is part of it.

On September 14, Lidia takes the trolley to school, too exhausted to work. However, she falls asleep until the end of the line. She rushes back toward school, realizing how late she is.

Around the corner from the school, she sees a truck outside the shop. Several Nazi officers exit, leading her teacher and her classmates out of the school and loading them onto the truck. Her teacher discreetly shakes her head, signaling Lidia not to get involved. Lidia goes back around the corner and sobs on the ground.

Lidia goes directly to Drill’s address and pounds on the door. Despite his anger that she came there, she insists that she wants to do more in the fight. He instructs her to come back that night.

That night, Lidia goes to Drill and meets several more resistance members, including Hawk, Hand, Elephant, and another girl named Ribbon. Arrow—the man from the café who Lidia learns is the leader—tells them about children who are being stolen from their homes in Poland and taken to German families. Lidia is shocked to learn that the Nazi regime has taken over 100,000 children. They plan to stop a truck with dozens of children on it and free them.

Lidia and Ribbon wait for the truck next to spikes that are put in the road to disable it. Their job is to get the children off safely. However, the truck stops short of where they expect it to, leaving the other resistance members too far up the road to help. Instead, Ribbon runs out with a gun, shooting at the two Nazi soldiers who get off the truck. As Ribbon runs, Lidia tries to sneak around the remaining soldier but is caught. As he goes to shoot her, Arrow saves her life, shooting the officer first. Arrow tells Lidia to drive the truck away. With the flat tires, she struggles but manages to get to the end of the road and then get the children off the truck.

As Lidia and the children begin to run, they hear church bells signaling midnight. She leads the children toward the church, eventually finding it. The pastor sees them pass and comes out of his home, unlocking the church for them and offering to hide them. However, Lidia insists that she needs to help her friends.

Lidia heads back toward where the truck broke down but realizes that there are too many Germans on the street. Instead, she sneaks home, where she finds Mama waiting for her. Mama confronts her about being part of the resistance, but Lidia simply dismisses her and goes to bed. Mama calls her “selfish” for not thinking of her safety or Ryszard’s.

The next morning, Lidia goes to see Drill but finds a notice taped to the door with a time and place for the execution of “traitors.” Lidia goes to the location—where the truck broke down the night before—but Ryszard stops her. He insists that it is a trap designed to get those involved to return to the scene. He tells her that only one person was caught: Ribbon. He tries to make Lidia go into hiding, but she is adamant that she needs to continue to fight.

Over the next couple of weeks, Russia turns against Germany after helping them invade Poland. Now, Poland is in the middle of a war between the two countries, with fighter planes flying overhead constantly and occasional bombing. At work, Lidia is charged with sounding a siren when Russian bombers are nearby, a task that she does half-heartedly. However, she is given an armband with a Swastika on it, symbolizing her important work.

On October 4, she delivers bullets to a safehouse. There are soldiers everywhere on the street, so she stops at Gray’s apartment and has Gray strap them to her back with medical bandages. Gray warns her not to do the delivery, but Lidia is unconcerned with her safety.

Back on the street, Officer Schubert stops Lidia. He asks where she is going, and she lies and says that she is going to her aunt’s apartment. Schubert searches her and feels the bullets under her bandages, but Lidia insists that it’s a girdle. She angrily yells at Schubert, showing her armband and telling him that her superior will be upset. Finally, he lets her go.

Two months later, the Nazis come to Lidia’s home and demand to search for Ryszard in the middle of the night. She watches as Ryszard quickly goes to the attic and then disappears. The officers search for him, but, to Lidia’s surprise, they are unable to find him.

After they go, Lidia goes to the attic to find him. He jumps down from the skylight above, frozen from hours of hiding on the roof. Lidia and Mama desperately try to help him, fetching buckets of water from outside and heating it up. Their neighbors in their apartment building, including Maryna and her family, realize what is happening and help Lidia. Slowly, Ryszard begins to warm up and return to normal.

On December 18, Lidia wakes up in the night to Ryszard moaning with fever. Mama suggests going to the hospital, but Lidia insists that it’s not safe for him. Instead, Lidia decides to sneak out—despite the curfew—and go to their old neighborhood to find Dr. Malkus.

When she gets to Dr. Malkus’s house, he urgently tells her to come inside. Lidia realizes that German officers have occupied nearly every home in the neighborhood—including her family’s old home. Dr. Malkus insists that it is not safe for her, so he offers to go look at Ryszard while Lidia waits with his wife.

Lidia is excited when she finds a piano in the Malkus home. Mrs. Malkus insists that she play, so Lidia goes through several of her favorite songs. As she does so, Mrs. Malkus makes breakfast and tells Lidia about her family. She lost her first two sons in the war, and the third now works for the underground resistance. She asks Lidia if Ryszard is doing the same, which causes Lidia to become hesitant. She wonders why Dr. Malkus was able to keep his home—while the others lost them to the Germans. She decides that she needs to leave, insisting to Mrs. Malkus that Ryszard and their entire family are loyal to the Germans.

Back at home, Lidia learns that Dr. Malkus cared for Ryszard and then left, with promises to come back later. However, Lidia tells Mama that they should not have him back, afraid of who he might bring.

On January 27, 1944, Lidia receives a new assignment. She is tasked with scouting out an entire block of apartments on Prosta Street. She is told to make note of every door, every alley, and ways to get to the attic and up onto the roofs. She does so by pretending to inhabit each, getting help from the janitors who typically live in the basements. She realizes that the resistance is planning something big, so she pays special attention to possible escape routes in the buildings.

When she gets home, Ryszard is gone. Mama tells her that he admitted to being in the resistance and fled for his family’s safety. Mama is upset and makes a comment about how she is “alone” now without Papa and Ryszard. Normally, Lidia angrily leaves when Mama makes comments like that—ignoring the fact that she still has Lidia. This time, however, she squeezes Mama’s hand to comfort her.

On June 6, Lidia and the other resistance members learn of the Allied forces landing at Normandy. They are also learning more about Auschwitz and the horrors at other death camps. They are planning a unified uprising in Poland to finally get rid of Nazi occupation.

Drill pulls Lidia aside to show her Ryszard’s journal. She reads the last page—a letter to Lidia. He tells her that he has joined the partisans, fighting alongside Russia, but that he realizes the Russians just want Poland for themselves. His letter stops midsentence.

Lidia demands to know what happened to him. Drill hesitates and then tells her that they believe he died trying to help a man escape. He assures Lidia that Ryszard is the bravest person he ever met—aside from her.

Lidia asks for her next mission. Drill tries to get her to take a break, but she is adamant that she wants to keep fighting.

Lidia tells Mama about Ryszard, and she becomes distant and depressed, largely ignoring the fact that Lidia is still in her life.

On July 31, Lidia warns Mama that there is going to be a massive uprising. As the Russians fight from the eastern border, the resistance is going to use it as an opportunity to push the Germans out and hold Poland against the Russians. Mama tells her that it won’t work, insisting that fighting is useless. However, Lidia ignores her, instead asking for help to get a different dress from their things at Mr. Katz’s house. Mama angrily tells her that she “can’t bother Mr. Katz every time [she] want[s] to join an uprising” and then insists that Lidia “think of someone other than [her]self” (238).

Angrily, Lidia goes upstairs and packs her things. She prepares to leave and never see Mama again. When she goes back down, she finds her mother wrapping soaps that she plans to sell. Lidia goes to the door, “wishing once again that for just one minute” she would be “more important to [Mama] than soap” (238). She says goodbye to her mother, tells her to stay safe, and then leaves.