Their house is destroyed by a bombing. The father and the mother are arrested and sent to a concentration camp. Their three minor children, Ruth, Edek and Bronia, are left alone with danger, depression and hunger. Every day they look for some food. Soon they meet another boy named Jan, who turns out to be a talented thief. Now the children try to survive together by supporting each other.
But no one knows that Jan is keeping the silver sword that these children's father once gave him. Jan knows he must never lose it.
This book which resulted from Benedict's wartime research, like several other United States Office of War Information wartime studies of Japan and Germany, [6] is an instance of 'culture at a distance,' the study of a culture through its literature, newspaper clippings, films, and recordings, as well as extensive interviews with German-Americans or Japanese-Americans.
The techniques were necessitated by anthropologists' inability to visit Nazi Germany or wartime Japan. One later ethnographer pointed out, however, that although 'culture at a distance' had the 'elaborate aura of a good academic fad, the method was not so different from what any good historian does: to make the most creative use possible of written documents. Americans found themselves unable to comprehend matters in Japanese culture.
For instance, Americans considered it quite natural that American prisoners of war would want their families to know that they were alive and that they would keep quiet when they were asked for information about troop movements, etc. However, Japanese prisoners of war apparently gave information freely and did not try to contact their families.
Between and , the book sold only 28, hardback copies, and a paperback edition was not issued until Roosevelt that permitting continuation of the Emperor's reign had to be part of the eventual surrender offer. More than two million copies of the book have been sold in Japan since it first appeared in translation there.
John W. Bennett and Michio Nagai, two scholars on Japan, pointed out in that the translated book 'has appeared in Japan during a period of intense national self-examination — a period during which Japanese intellectuals and writers have been studying the sources and meaning of Japanese history and character, in one of their perennial attempts to determine the most desirable course of Japanese development. Japanese social critic and philosopher Tamotsu Aoki said that the translated book 'helped invent a new tradition for postwar Japan.
Douglas Lummis has said the entire 'nihonjinron' genre stems ultimately from Benedict's book. The book began a discussion among Japanese scholars about 'shame culture' vs. As they travel through Europe towards Switzerland, where they believe they will be reunited with their parents, they encounter many hardships and dangers.
This extraordinarily moving account of an epic journey gives a remarkable insight into the reality of a Europe laid waste by war. Serraillier was best known for his children's books, especially the Silver Sword Novel , a wartime adventure story which was adapted for television. With their parents taken away by Nazis, Ruth, Edek and Bronia are forced to fend for themselves in the dangerous, war-ravaged city of Warsaw. Formatting may be different depending on your device and eBook type.
Tell them to follow as soon as they can'. Having lost their parents in the chaos of war, Ruth, Edek and Bronia are left alone to fend for themselves and hide from the Nazis amid the rubble and ruins of their city.
They meet a ragged orphan boy, Jan, who treasures a paperknife - a silver sword - which was entrusted to him by an escaped prisoner of war. File Name: the silver sword pdf free download. Ian Serraillier Ruth, Bronia, and Edek have to fend for themselves when both of their parents are taken by the Nazis.
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