Uprising
Jennifer A. Nielsen
Scholastic Press

Set in Poland during World War 2, this book is based on the real life story of Lidia Durr – a girl whose life changed irrevocably when the Nazis invaded Poland. Lidia, a talented pianist, is just twelve in September 1939. She and her family went into hiding in their basement when the Nazis began bombing Warsaw as part of their house was smashed by bombs. When the German takeover was complete, Lidia and her family went back to living upstairs but then were forced out as the Germans took the house for themselves. Papa meanwhile has donned his uniform from WWI and gone to fight for Poland.

The Durr family – Lidia, her mother and brother, Ryszard, together with a Jewish woman their former maid, Doda, and Doda’s mother relocate to a tiny apartment adjacent to Warsaw’s Jewish quarter from where, at the mercy of their occupiers, Lidia helplessly watches family, friends, and countless strangers suffer terrible cruelty, starvation and injustice.

With life becoming ever more difficult, Lidia, desperate to fight back, seeks opportunities to play her part. She sneaks food into the ghetto and enrols in an underground school but as she gets older, with Ryszard having joined the resistance, she finds this isn’t enough. Always hoping for liberation, she begins to fear that the world has forgotten Warsaw.

Frustratingly, her brother doesn’t talk about his resistance work so Lidia finds her own ways to increase her participation. She begins by running messages for the resistance but soon becomes a crucial element taking on ever more dangerous assignments. Admitted into the circle of people planning Operation Tempest, Lidia (code name Cello) rapidly rises up the ranks.

This is a powerful story with Polish people who are not Jewish as its main characters that demonstrates just how very dangerous it was to speak out of turn, let alone be a pro-active member of the resistance movement. Lidia survived and was eventually reunited with her mother in Chicago, dying in 2011: her father and brother perished during the war.

Child readers and adults cannot fail to feel in awe of what she and others like her contributed to her country. (Some black and white photographs of Lidia and her family follow the main narrative.)