Author: Adam Michejda
Illustrator: Tomasz Woody Borawski
Year: 2019
Publisher: Oficyna 4eM
Place of publication: Warszawa
Pages: 303
ISBN: 9788366242159
Notes: “Pilny na tropie” series
The narrator of this novel is Rafał Pilny, a journalist who was born in Poland and currently lives in the United States. He comes across his father’s diary, written during the Second World War. The diary’s author, Dawid, was raised at Janusz Korczak’s Orphanage. Right after the war, he participated in hiding a treasure in Warsaw, and the search for it becomes the main axis of the novel’s plot. Rafał, along with his sons David and Max, heads to Poland in order to find the treasure as well as learn the history of the capital city and of grandfather Dawid himself. This proves to be challenging. On their path, the family must solve many historical riddles, aided by an expert from the Warsaw Rising Museum or a clockmaking-enthusiast, but also a suspicious group of musclemen, interested in finding the treasure of the ghetto.
In this first volume of the series Pilny Investigates, Michejda combines a contemporary narrative with fragments of Dawid Kantorowicz’s diary. The fictional child character recorded events from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941-1942. Fragments of Janusz Korczak’s writings were incorporated there (marked with footnotes) as well as descriptions of the grim reality in accordance with the recollections of victims and witnesses. In the novel, Warsaw’s past merges with the present. Rafał and his sons visit landmarks of Jewish history in Warsaw: Chłodna Street, where they marvel at the art installation which commemorates a footbridge that used to connect the so-called small ghetto with the large ghetto; the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews; and Korczakianum, a branch of the Museum of Warsaw located at the original premises of the Orphan Home at 92 Krochmalna Street (today: 6 Jaktorowska Street).
Bibliography:
- Rybak, K., Zagłada i ideologia w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej XXI wieku, „Narracje o Zagładzie”, no. 1(7), 2021, pp. 155–173 (p. 159);
- Rybak, K., „Zupełnie inne miasto”. Obrazy warszawskiego getta w polskiej literaturze dziecięcej XXI wieku, „Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura”, no. 3(1), 2021, pp. 67–84 (p. 76);
- Rybak, K., Obrazowanie Zagłady. Narracje holokaustowe w polskiej literaturze XXI wieku dla dzieci i młodzieży, Warszawa 2023.