{"id":566,"date":"2019-02-11T21:32:50","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T20:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oczamidziecka.al.uw.edu.pl\/?page_id=566"},"modified":"2023-12-06T10:21:14","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T09:21:14","slug":"ostatnie-pietro-the-top-floor","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/oczamidziecka.al.uw.edu.pl\/index.php\/en\/ostatnie-pietro-the-top-floor\/","title":{"rendered":"Ostatnie pi\u0119tro [The Top Floor]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n
Author: Irena Landau<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Illustrator: Joanna Rusinek<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Year: 2015<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Publisher: Literatura<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Place of publication: \u0141\u00f3d\u017a<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Pages: 102<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
ISBN: 9788376723624<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Notes: “Wojny doros\u0142ych \u2013 historie dzieci” series<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"
Cover courtesy of the publisher. \u00a9Wydawnictwo Literatura<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The main character, Cesia, is rescued from the Ghetto<\/a> and remains in hiding at a Polish family\u2019s apartment. Whenever strangers visit, she goes into a hideout. The space is dark and confined, and Cesia is forced to hide as often as several times a day. There, she must behave as though she was not there. Her only companion is Pliszka the Mouse, who “lives” with her there. Still, even Pliszka cannot lighten up the grim hideout. Bombings are the worst, as the rest of the family rushes to the cellar, and Cesia is left alone in the apartment. Sounds of explosions and the black darkness of the hideout have a traumatic influence on her psyche. Many years after the war, she visits the apartment were she used to hide. A friend, the former owners\u2019 daughter, still lives there. The now-adult Cesia does not take the opportunity to look inside the hideout, whose memory brings back the trauma of the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Top Floor<\/i> is based on the experiences Irena Landau\u2019s mother, Celina, who was the original Cesia. Notably, this is one of the few children\u2019s books acknowledging that memories can be unpleasant, painful or uncomfortable. It is also a rare example of a children\u2019s text where active resistance by the Jewish population is mentioned. Cesia learns that an uprising<\/a> broke out in the Ghetto, and Chaim, the man who had helped her escape and with whom she was infatuated, died fighting. In the afterword, the author stresses that when writing about Chaim, she “thought about all the heroic Jewish boys who fought for dignity and honor, and were killed during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising” (p. 103).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bibliography:<\/h6>\n