The Silver Sword

Joseph Balicki is arrested by the Nazis. After a year, he escapes adn returns to Warsaw. His old house was destroyed. He finds out that his wife was arrested and that his children have never...

The Silver Sword is essentially about the children's journey, on their own, to reunite with their parents in Switzerland. It is therefore safe to conclude that the main theme of the story is...

One of the themes you may want to consider discussing is the impact of war on families. The story revolves around a Polish family, which feels the impacts of World War II. For instance, the author...

The old man and his wife harbored Joseph in their house despite knowing that Joseph had escaped from prison. The old man and his wife risked being arrested by harboring and aiding an escapee. Jan...

The best way to explain how the silver sword is used as a symbol in The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier is to direct your attention to what Jan tells Ruth on the night that Ruth realizes Edek...

The final chapter of this famous children's classic, Chapter 29, entitled "The New Beginning," gives a very clear indication of the kind of future that the children enjoy now that they are safe in...

Jan’s involvement in theft first emerges when he meets with Joseph Balicki. Joseph recognizes that Jan is a pickpocket. He, however, benefits from Jan’s theft when the boy gives him food stolen...

When Poles are put to work for the Germans, some peasants have access to food. The peasants succeed in smuggling food into the town and selling it to Poles on the black market. Older polish...

Different circumstances pose specific dangers/risks. For example, Jan, who has become so distrustful of men in uniform, sees even the Russian sentry, Ivan as a threat. Jan steals from the Americans...

One the morals of the story is that there's always hope, even in the depths of despair. On the face of it, it would seem that there's very little hope for the Balicki children. Forced to embark...

In Ian Serrillier's The Silver Sword, Zakyna is the Nazi prison camp in South Poland where Joseph Balicki is taken when he insults Adolf Hitler by turning his picture to the wall. The narrator...

Ruth, Jan, and Bronia have decided to head for Switzerland, the land of Ruth and Bronia's grandparents, and they wanted to find Edek. They knew that Edek was in Posen, so they headed in that...

Joseph Balinki was confined in a prisoner of war camp in Zakyna by the Nazis for turning a picture of Hitler to the wall during a scripture lesson. Zakyna was in the mountains of South Poland. In...

The title of the novel is based on the symbolic paper knife in the novel. It is this silver sword that repersents hope and becomes the propelling force for the children along their journey. It is...

When Joseph Balicki gives Jan the sword, he tells Jan "I will give you the sword on one condition.... If ever you see Ruth or Edek or Bronia you must tell them about our meeting. Tell them I'm...

In the story, Ludwig originally belonged to the Bavarian farmer, Kurt Wolff, and his wife, Frau Wolff. Jan takes a liking to Ludwig during the childrens' stay at the farm. By all indications, the...

In Chapter One, the plot involves Joseph Balicki's escape from prison in the mountains of South Poland. During the first winter of his incarceration, Joseph is too ill to attempt an escape. In the...

It is Ivan, the Russian sentry, who gives Jan the wooden box. Earlier on, the two got into a scuffle. After his traumatic experiences with the Germans, Jan is distrustful of anyone in a uniform....

In The Silver Sword Joseph's daughter is portrayed as having great emotional and moral resilience. Her caring yet firm actions show that she is dependable and can win the trust of others, thus...

There are a lot of important quotes in The Silver Sword. Some of them are about the setting, some are about the characters, and some are about the themes. Let's begin with these four: In Chapter 4,...

The Nazi prison was located in Zakyna, south of Poland. This was brought out in the first chapter, where Joseph Balicki, a school teacher, turned Hitler’s picture to face the wall in his classroom....

Hello! When the Bavarian farmer discovers the children in his barn one July morning, he is not surprised. Kurt Wolff tells Ruth, Bronia, Edek, and Jan that they are not the first Polish refugees he...

Chapter 17: In this chapter, the most important events are Edek's discovery of Jan's clandestine actions and Edek's subsequent arrest by Captain Greenwood. In Chapter 17, we discover that Jan is...

Stealing is certainly a recurring motif and dominant theme in Ian Serraillier's The Silver Sword. In addition, Jan's stealing is often juxtaposed against the Balicki children's behavior and...

The Silver Sword is a novel by Ian Serraillier, first published in 1956. The Silver Sword follows members of the Polish Balicki family who journey to reunite with each other after being seperated...

The Balicki children try to make the most of their situation by making do with what they have, but Edek has become involved with stealing supplies and provisions from the Nazi camps. The risk is...

In a literary work, an antagonist provides some sort of opposition to the story's protagonist or main character. The opposition creates conflict in the narrative. Sometimes the antagonist is a...

The general setting of Ian Serraillier's novel The Silver Sword is Warsaw, Poland, during WW II and after. Ruth, Edek, and Bronia Balicki are forced to survive on their own after their father was...

Stories very often leave some details to the imagination. We are only told of the horrible storm and of how Ludwig was barking frantically a distance away. Ludwig was running around in circles,...

In the book, Margrit Balicki is Joseph Balicki's wife. Joseph is the principal of a school in Warsaw. Margrit is the mother of Ruth, Edek, and Bronia. In the narrative, Margrit Balicki is a loving...

We meet Mrs. Krause in the early chapters of the novel. She is the mother of a student who once attended Joseph's school; before his capture, Joseph had served as the principal at the school. After...

The Silver Sword is a realistic novel about war that depends heavily on description for its literary effect. Because the setting of war-torn Europe shapes the children's experiences, Serraillier...

Ian Serraillier's The Silver Sword features a long sequence of rising action as it follows the adventures of its various characters. The action rises first in the story of Joseph Balicki, the...

In the book The Silver Sword by Ian Surrailier, a farmer gives refuge to the main characters after discovering them hiding on his farm. The farmer, Kurt Wolff, has a sad gleam in his eye due to the...

In The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier, Ruth Balicki is placed in a very difficult situation, as her home country of Poland is invaded by the Nazis and her father, then her mother, and then her...

In The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier, the children are separated from their mother, Margrit, when she is forcibly taken by Nazis to work in Germany. One of the children shot at the soldiers that...

The silver sword links the children (Ruth, Edek, and Bronia) to their father and symbolizes hope. The first mention of the silver sword is in chapter four. Their father, Joseph, returns to Warsaw...

At the beginning of the book, Joseph is imprisoned in Zakyna in the mountains of South Poland. The conditions are awful. It is cold and snowy and the small huts they stayed in, fit for only 40...

In Ian Serraillier's The Silver Sword, Joseph Balicki is separated from his wife and children when the Nazis arrest him and take him to a work camp all because he turned a picture of Adolf Hitler...

According to the Enotes guide chapters 14-16 summary, the chimpanzee was sighted at the crowded cinema attempting to gain access to the building. This was the same cinema where the Balicki...

By their very nature, any book about the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II are not humorous. However, there are various anecdotes in this great story that can be argued to be humorous. The...

Edek was mistakenly charged for being part of a gang that robbed trains in the American zone. This happened after he followed Jan, who always brought them food in suspicious tins. Jan was involved...

In The Silver Sword, the protagonist, Joseph Balicki, is in the Nazi-run prison camp for over a year. The former school headmaster from Warsaw, Poland, is arrested by the Nazi police in Warsaw at...

Joseph has successfully managed to escape from the prison camp and is now making his way down to the village of Zakyna. In order to avoid a drunken German soldier, he hides in a roofless cage full...

The Silver Sword was written by Ian Serraillier. It is a story about a Polish family's struggles during and after World War II. The novel's main characters are three children named Ruth, Edek, and...

Edek and Bronia Balicki are siblings. They are pretty much orphaned in the slum of Warsaw when their father is sent to a concentration camp while their mother goes into forced labor. Although...