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Book about WWII Warsaw Ghetto wins Jewish prize

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 14.01.2016 09:33
Jim Shepard’s 'The Book of Aron: A Novel' has won the 2016 Sophie Brody Medal for achievement in Jewish Literature.
The Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Bundesarchiv, N 1576 Bild-003/ Herrmann, Ernst (CC-BY-SA 3.0)The Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Bundesarchiv, N 1576 Bild-003/ Herrmann, Ernst (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

The plot revolves around an eight-year-old boy, Aron, from a poor family living in the Jewish Ghetto, as he slips into a life of smuggling and thievery.

The boy’s misery ends when Dr. Janusz Korczak, a celebrated historic figure in Poland and beyond, takes him under his wings.

Dr. Korczak, born Henryk Goldszmit into an assimilated Jewish family, was a successful writer and committed advocate of children's rights.

He founded an orphanage in Warsaw, and refused to abandon it after the Nazi Germans occupied Poland and created a Jewish ghetto in the city.

He declined help from the Polish underground, and on 22 July 1942, the liquidation of the ghetto began.

On 5 August 1942, over 6600 people were deported to the Treblinka death camp, among them Dr Korczak and close to 200 of his children.

The literary prize is funded by Arthur Brody and the Brodart Foundation and named after his late wife, a philanthropist and key figure in the United Jewish Federation. (ua/nh)

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