Set in the ghettos of wartime Warsaw, this is a sweeping, poignant, and heartbreaking novel inspired by the true story of one doctor who was determined to protect two hundred Jewish orphans from extermination. Deeply in love and about to marry, students Misha and Sophia flee a Warsaw under Nazi occupation for a chance at freedom. Forced to return to the Warsaw ghetto, they help Misha's mentor, Dr Janusz Korczak, care for the two hundred children in his orphanage. As Korczak struggles to uphold the rights of even the smallest child in the face of unimaginable conditions, he becomes a beacon of hope for the thousands who live behind the walls. As the noose tightens around the ghetto, Misha and Sophia are torn from one another, forcing them to face their worst fears alone. They can only hope to find each other again one day . . . Meanwhile, refusing to leave the children unprotected, Korczak must confront a terrible darkness.

November 1940. A circus parade walks through the streets of Warsaw, waving a flag and singing. They are 160 Jewish children, forced by the Nazis to leave their beloved orphanage. It's a sad occasion, but led by Doctor Korczak, their inspirational director, the children are defiantly joyful.

Reprint. Originally published: New York: Holocaust Library, c1978.

A starkly compelling, original chronicle of survival in Nazi-occupied Poland, available in English for the first time

By National Book Award finalist Jim Shepard, a deeply affecting novel that will join the shortlist of classics about the Holocaust and the children whose lives were caught up in it. For readers of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, Kenneally's Schindler's List; Szpilman's The Pianist; Anne Michaels' Fugitive Pieces; Markus Zusack's The Book Thief; the works of Pimo Levi and Elie Weisel and Michael Chabon. When we meet Aron, he is a beguiling and perceptive and not always happy young boy coming into awareness of himself and his family's struggles. When soon they are driven from the countryside into Warsaw, their lives are changed forever. Aron and a group of boys and girls risk their lives scuttling around the ghetto, smuggling and trading things through the "quarantine walls" to keep their people alive, while they are hunted by blackmailers and Jewish and Polish and German police, as gradually things catastrophically worsen, people begin to disappear, and survival is threatened on all sides. Eventually, Aron comes to know Janusz Korczak, a Jewish-Polish doctor famous for his advocacy of children's rights, whose orphanage was relocated to the ghetto once the Nazis swept in. In the end, he and the children he takes care of, Aron among them, are brought to the station to be put on a train to Treblinka. The Book of Aron is a breathtaking novel of extraordinary craft, humanity, and masterful storytelling. Fearless, and devoid of sentimentality, it looks squarely into the face of unspeakable suffering, evil and lawlessness, revealing the persistence and strength of the human spirit despite all odds and the redemptive power of love. It is nothing less than a masterpiece.

This is the tragic story of Janusz Korczak (as featured in the major motion picture The Zookeeper's Wife) who chose to perish in Treblinka rather than abandon the Jewish orphans in his care. Korczak comes alive in this acclaimed biography by Betty Jean Lifton as the first known advocate of children's rights in Poland, and the man known as a savior of hundreds of orphans in the Warsaw ghetto. A pediatrician, educator, and Polish Jew, Janusz Korczak introduced progressive orphanages, serving both Jewish and Catholic children, in Warsaw. Determined to shield children from the injustices of the adult world, he built orphanages into 'just communities' complete with parliaments and courts. Korczak also founded the first national children's newspaper, testified on behalf of children in juvenile courts, and, through his writings, provided teachers and parents with a moral education. Known throughout Europe as a Pied Piper of destitute children prior to the onslaught of World War II, he assumed legendary status when on August 6, 1942, after refusing offers for his own safety, he defiantly led the orphans under his care in the Warsaw Ghetto to the trains that would take them to Treblinka. Introductions by Elie Wiesel, Curren Warf and Allison A. Eddy [Subject: Biography, Holocaust Studies, Jewish Studies, WWII, Children's Rights]