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Summary..............................................................................................................................................2
Genre....................................................................................................................................................4
Title.......................................................................................................................................................5
Author..................................................................................................................................................6
Theme.................................................................................................................................................10
Characters..........................................................................................................................................11
Details of Characters........................................................................................................................11
Plot......................................................................................................................................................14
Symbolism..........................................................................................................................................15
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................16

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Summary
The story of The Silver Sword revolves around The Balicki family (Joseph, his wife Margrit
and their three children Ruth, Edek and Bronia) who are separated by the Second World
War.Joseph Balicki lived in the suburb of the Warsaw with his family. He was a polish man
whereas his wife was a Swiss lady. He was serving as the headmaster of the primary school
in the early 1940 when, Nazis invaded Poland.
Joseph Balickiwas arrested and sent to the prison by Nazis because the schools had been
instructed to hang pictures of Hitler in their classrooms but he resented the order and turned
one of these pictures around to face the classroom wall, and someone reported him. Joseph
endured a lot of hardships in the prison but he never lost hope of escaping from the prison
and meeting his family. Meanwhile his family was also enduring a lot of trouble- Margrit, the
wife of Joseph was arrested by Nazis in January and sent to Germany to work as a labourer,
they blew up his house however the children were successful in escaping on time but now the
whole responsibility of handling and bringing the family together is on Ruth (the elder
daughter).
Joseph Balicki escaped from the prison in a Nazi uniform,on his way to Warsaw, Joseph hid
in a house and avoided discovery by Nazi officers by hiding up a chimney. When he returns
home, he finds the place to be as bleak and silent as the craters of the moon. A family friend,
Mrs Krause tells Joseph about the misfortunate events that his family had to face. His
children have not been seen since, and Mrs Krause believes them to be dead.
Joseph visits the ruins of his house to find some clue about his children and meets a boy, Jan,
with The Silver Sword. Joseph tries to question Jan about his children but unable to find any
answer of their whereabouts, he allows Jan to keep the silver sword and tells him that if he
ever meets the Balicki children, he must tell them that their father is heading to Switzerland
to find their mother. Jan helps Joseph to find a train and send him on his way to Switzerland.
The Balicki children who escaped on the night of their mother’s arrest were now living in the
cellar of a nearby house. Trying to fulfil the needs of the family, Edek gets involved with
black market traders which eventually leads to his arrest by the Nazis.Edek who had been
their lifeline is now missing and now Ruth and Bronia had to fend for themselves.
After two years of leaving in the woods when Ruth and Bronia returned to Warsaw, the Old
Town they had known is wiped out. Ruth and Broniafound their old cellar and started leaving
there. There they come across Jan, who always carries round a wooden box with him, and has
a firm friend in a chicken named Jimpy. They discover that Jan has the silver sword which
belonged to their mother and he knows where their father is. A Russian sentry, Ivan becomes
a close friend of the girls and provides them with supplies and food. He manages to find out
that Edek has escaped from the prison camp and is in a place called Posen. The three-young
people (Ruth, Bronia and Jan) decided to meet Edekand eventually find him at a feeding
station but he is now suffering from tuberculosis.
The children decided to travel to Berlin to find their parents. While there, Ruth gets a job, and
Jan makes friends with a chimpanzee that has escaped from a nearby zoo. As they progress
P a g e 2 | 18
through Germany Jan and Edek are arrested for stealing food from American soldiers’
supplies. After a dramatic defence from Jan, Jan is imprisoned for a week and Edek was
saved. After the release of Jan from the Prison, the children could finally continue their
journey. There they are taken in by a farmer called Kurt and the children begin to work on his
farm to save themselves from the Burgomaster and deportation. When the Burgomaster
crashes his car outside the house, Edek offers to help him. Broniaunknowingly gives away
their identity when she speaks in Polish, and the Burgomaster announces that they must
return to their country.
Kurt and his wife helps the children to escape in canoes and his dog, Ludvig, who has taken a
liking to Jan, follows them. They survive a dangerous journey but Jan soon realises that The
Silver Sword which was their only strength and hope is missing, and that it must be back at
the farm house. Jan decides to go back to the farm and find The Silver Sword.
The children come across Joe Wolski, an American GI, who drives the children to
Switzerland to try and find Jan. Ruth notices a weird noise coming from the back of the truck,
Joe jokes about having wild animals in the back of his truck and they discover that in fact Jan
and Ludwig are hiding there.
The children continue their journey and meet a Superintendent who has heard from their
father. Kurt had also sent on The Silver Sword to the Superintendent. To reach Switzerland
and their parents, the children must cross Lake Constance, but a huge storm capsizes their
boat. Edek almost drowns but Jan saves them and eventually, they are reunited with their
parents who adopt Jan.
Later, the Balicki’s are made incharge of running a Polish House in a children’s village in
Switzerland. The children although they start a new life but the hardships which they have
endured still casts its shadow on their personality. Bronia uses her artistic talents to draw
pictures of the war which later changes into the picturesque landscape of Switzerland,Edek
recovers from his illness and becomes an engineer, Jan gets a cat named Arlo and cares for
many sick animals, and Ruth becomes a teacher.

P a g e 3 | 18
Genre
The Silver Sword is a Realistic Fiction. The backdrop of the events is the World War II, in
which stands the idea of uniting a family. A family which is the imaginary creation but the
events which it goes through during the period of World War II makes the reader feel the
realistic view of the events experienced by the people during that period. The characters
brought to life by the author are fictitious, the story was created from historical fact and the
young heroes Ruth, Edek, Bronia and Jan were based on real children found in records
compiled by the Red Cross but, they all came from different families. Edek was the child who
died due to Tuberculosis.
It is also stated in the Author’s Note that the characters in this book are fictitious, but the
story is based upon fact. Imaginary names have been given to a few of the places mentioned
-they are the villages of Boding and Kolina, the River Falken, the town of Falkenburg and the
prison camp of Zakyna. All other place names are real and can be found on the map of
Europe. The description of the Red Army on the march is based on eye witness accounts in J.
Stransky’s East Wind over Prague.
Ian Serraillier took five years to research and complete The Silver Sword, but he has never
witnessed the scenes he described in the book. As a Quaker and a pacifist, he believed that it
is wrong to kill anyone and he had refused to fight in the war. He used cuttings from
magazines like Quaker publication and The Friend, which tells us about the ruined cities of
Europe, of children who jumped the trucks of good trains to steal food, cellar dwellers and
children who, like Bronia, drew whatever they saw around them and the photographic
magazine of the time, Picture Post, which had many pictures of the devastation in post war
Europe, to frame the characters and events of the story.
He made rough sketch of the different war zones behind the back of an envelope and it
helped him to develop the events, characters and construct the story of The Silver Sword. The
characters and dialogues are engaging and believable. The setting is true to life. The problems
faced by the characters and the resolution make sense. Most importantly, the theme grows
naturally out of the action and characters – which gives it a framework of a realistic fiction.

P a g e 4 | 18
Title
The title of the book The Silver Sword, is based on the name of a small paper knife which
was given to Mrs. Margret Balicki by her husband. The title is explicitly stated in the book
with a clear reference to the purpose it serves, as a symbol of hope and courage with the help
of various characters and instances. The Silver Sword becomes the symbol of hope, strength
and courage for the Balicki children to find their parents. It symbolizes the family strength to
move ahead.
When Jan finds The Silver Sword, it is only a precious possession in his collection. It does
not have any link to his feelings but when he meets the Balicki children, he realises the
importance of The Silver Sword and how it is priceless for the Balicki children to keep their
hope alive of finding their parents.
When Joseph was trying to find his children in the debris of his bombed home, he finds Jan
with The Silver Sword. Joseph allow him to keep The Silver Sword paper knife which shows
his trust and faith in Jan, revealing his belief in the goodness and loyalty in Jan's character
and a belief that if he ever meets the Balicki children, he will tell them to move towards
Switzerland to unite with their parents.
One more incident which explains how The Silver Sword is used as a symbol in the book is
when Jan tells Ruth on the night that Edek might die as he lay beside them wracked with a
cough, pain and exhaustion. Jan asks Ruth if he may have Edek's shoes when he dies and
Ruth forces herself to reply calmly, "He's not going to die." It is then that Jan makes a clear
statement of the silver sword's use as a symbol.

Jan explains that the children's lives and good fortunes during their quest to reunite with Edek
and Ruth's father and their journey to the safety of Switzerland depend upon the possession of
the silver sword. He explains that this is so because their father gave it to him, entrusting him
with it, thereby building a "lifeline" between children--including Jan--and father. Therefore,
the silver sword is a symbol of survival, of a lifeline through troubled times. It further
symbolizes the trust that the father placed in Jan. In a larger picture, the silver sword also
symbolizes the same kind of hope and trust for all the similarly suffering people the children
encountered. Following are the lines what Jan tells Ruth:
Once more out of the stillness a voice called her name. This time it was Jan.
"Ruth, may I have Edek's shoes when he dies?" he said.
"He's not going to die," said Ruth, forcing herself to speak calmly.
"He will if I don't have my sword," said Jan. "And we'll never find your father either. He gave
me the sword and it's our guide and lifeline. We can't do without it."
He spoke with such certainty that she almost believed him. It was true that, while they had
the sword, fortune had been kind to them.
The idea of the silver sword had come from an actual paper-knife, just twelve-centimetre-
long, that was sent by author’s brother Michael from Toledo, who was a photographer. It

P a g e 5 | 18
arrived with the post on the kitchen table just at the time when the author was wondering how
to link together the different scenes of the book that he had already worked out.
In the book, the sword becomes a narrative device that links the various episodes of the story.
For the children, it is a reminder of their home and a constant encouragement to them in their
search for their parents. The ideas of survival, a lifeline, and trust are major themes in the
story and are thus represented by the silver sword.

P a g e 6 | 18
Author
Ian Serraillier (1912 – 1994) was a prolific novelist and a poet, best known for his wartime
adventure story The Silver Sword (1956) which became a children’s classic.
After graduating from the Hall in 1935, Serraillier spent twenty-five years as an English
teacher – a career which helped in enabling his writing.
In 1946 his first children's novel was published. It was followed by many more adventure
stories, including Fight for Freedom, The Clashing Rocks, The Cave of Death, Havelock the
Dane, They Raced for Treasure, and Flight to Adventure.Serrailler also produced his own
retellings of classic tales, including Beowulf, Chaucer and Greek myth in Children Literature.
His works also include poems for adults, adventure novels for young adults, verse narratives
based on classical and medieval sources, radio verse play, picture books for younger
readers, and a nonfiction introduction to Chaucer for high school and college students.
Several of his poems have been broadcast in the United Kingdom, the United States, and
elsewhere.
Together with his wife, Serraillier founded the New Windmill Series in 1948, published by
Heinemann Educational Books. Between its inception in 1950 and Serraillier’s death in 1994
the series grew to more than 350 titles, embracing modern classics, biography and travel as
well as a range of current fiction for both children and adults.
As a Quaker, Serraillier was a conscientious objector during the Second World War; but he
drew inspiration from his war-time observations and experiences in his adventure
book The Silver Sword, which tells the story of four Polish children struggling to find their
parents in war-torn Europe. This novel – ‘a timeless story, meticulously set in modern time
and place’ (Obituary, TES) – has remained in print, and has been twice adapted for television
by the BBC -- first in 1957, and again in 1971. It is described by the Oxford Companion to
Children’s Literature as ‘one of the most remarkable books since 1945’. In 2012, it featured
in Once Upona Wartime, an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum.
Ian Serraillierwrote this book after a research of five years. He has never witnessed the scenes
he described in the book and being a Quaker and a pacifist, he believed that it is wrong ever
to kill anyone and he had refused to fight in the war. He used the cuttings from the magazine
like the Quaker publication The Friend and Picture Post, which tells about the ruined cities of
Europe, of children who jumped the trucks of good trains to steal food, cellar dwellers and
children who, like Bronia, drew whatever they saw around them and the devastation in post
war Europe, to frame the characters and events of the story.
The main purpose of writing this book is to provide a frank account of what the war and it’s
by products, like juvenile delinquency and refugees. Ian Serraillier has often stated in his
talks to school children who had been studying The Silver Sword that it is different from the
rest of the children literature as it shows the harsh reality of life. He gave them a slide show
of the sources he had used while writing the book. He always ended with a photograph from

P a g e 7 | 18
the UNESCO publication Children of Europe, and the words, ‘No child should ever again
have that expression on his face.’
The purpose of writing this book is not explicitly stated but it is quite evident from the
storyline as well as from the background study of the text and the author.

P a g e 8 | 18
Setting
The Silver Sword is set in the backdrop of the World War II. It sets in various towns and
places throughout Poland. Poland is in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west the
Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus to the east and the Baltic Sea and
Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania to the north. World War II started with
the German invasion of Poland on Friday September 1, 1939. The Polish Army was defeated
after over a month of fighting. On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the
east. Polish forces surrendered in early October after losing some 65,000 troops and many
thousands of civilians. 
Setting is also based on the imaginary names given by the author to a few of the places
mentioned –they are the villages of Boding and Kolina, the River Falken, the town of
Falkenburg and the prison camp of Zakyna. All other place names are real and can be found
on the map of Europe.
The setting of The Silver Sword truly affects the characters as the places mentioned in the
story are the ones which are most affected with the war time atrocities. It shows how difficult
it is for a common citizen to hold his/her family together and save them from the aftermath of
the war. How a common life becomes uncommon? How families are torn apart? How
children lose their childhood? And how difficult it is to maintain one’s sanity? All these
questions are raised through the narrative based in the setting of war torn Europe.
The setting is also related to the background of the author as he himself being a Quaker
believed that it is wrong ever to kill anyone and he had refused to fight in the war. He was a
conscientious objector during the Second World War; but he drew inspiration from his war-
time observations and experiences for writing The Silver Sword.
The atmosphere created by the setting is gloomy and mysterious, threatening and dangerous
yet also hopeful and optimistic of better things to come. The only ray of hope for Balicki
children and their parents is The Silver Sword. Phrases like prison camp on a bleak hillside,
smothered huts, stormy weather, bleak and silent places, crumbling walls, charred windows
and buildings like burnt out shells presents a picture of war torn city with shattered hopes.

P a g e 9 | 18
Theme
The dominant theme of the Silver Sword is trust and hope. The character Joseph Balicki
trusts Jan and gives him The Silver Sword with a hope that whenever Jan will meet his
children, he will inform them about his whereabouts, exposing the goodness and loyalty in
Jan's character. Whereas the character of Jan struggles to trust people because of the impact
of the war he has gone through being a child. But with the progress of the story Jan learns to
trust Joseph, Ruth and Edek. Jan has always depended on himself and his friendship with
Ruth redefines his qualities. When he rescues Edek during the storm on Lake Constance
when the boat capsizes also reveals his willingness to trust, because he chooses to aid Ruth
and Edek over Ludwig, his beloved dog.
When Edek loses hope of survival due to his deteriorating health condition, Ruth shows him a
ray of hope through The Silver Sword. Other themes that we find in this book are courage,
faith, unselfishness, perseverance, loyalty and honesty represented throughout the novel by
every character of Balicki family as they all stay strong and strive to find their family with no
thoughts on giving up.
The reader can also find quotation from A Child of Our Time at the front of this book “Here
is no final grieving, but an abiding hope. The moving waters renew the earth. It is spring”
which also represents the recurring theme of the book – time is like moving waters which
renew our lives and free it from any grieving and helps it to blossom like spring with new
hopes and desire. With this silver sword as a talisman of hope the four-young people set out
on a journey from Poland to Switzerland to meet up with their missing parents.

P a g e 10 | 18
Characters
The characterization in The Silver Sword is majorly direct. The author defines and explains
about the characters, their features, behaviours and characteristics.
For example, the author states the following lines about Ruth’s character and portrays her as
a character who is unselfish, courageous and uses her common sense to deal with every
situation: -
“Many other girls had to face difficulties as great as hers. But if there were any who faced
them with as much courage, unselfishness and common sense as she did, I have not heard of
them.”
Joseph Balicki is portrayed as a patriotic school teacher and a helpless father, who is
determined to reunite his family.
“First I must tell of Joseph Blicki and what happened to him in the prison camp of Zakyna.”
“But Joseph was determined to escape. During the first winter he was too ill and dispirited to
try. He would sit around the hut, thinking of his family and staring at a few tattered photos of
them that he had been allowed to keep.”
Jan is described through the eyes of Joseph “A small ragged boy sat watching him keenly.
He had fair wispy hair and unnaturally bright eyes. Under one arm he had a wooden box,
under the other a bony grey kitten.”

Details of Characters
Joseph Balicki is a Polish school teacher who is arrested by the Germans after he is seen
turning Adolf Hitler's picture to face the wall in his classroom. He is a resourceful man and
this trait seems to have passed to his children also. He is family-oriented and puts himself in
great danger by escaping from the Nazi prison camp to get back to his family in Warsaw. He
is single-minded and tenacious. It is his idea to tell Jan of his family that triggers their
journey to Switzerland where Joseph has told Jan he will be waiting for his children to reunite
as a family.
Margrit Balicki is Joseph's wife and she is taken by the Germans to work as slave-labour.
Conditions are hard there and although we do not hear about her experiences, at the end of
the war her hair has turned white and her face is heavily lined. She is extremely loving and
accepts Jan as one of her own children after they all arrive in Switzerland.
Ruth Balicki is a girl, who acts more like an adult than children, she loves her family
because after she met her parents, it’s described about her that"Ruth heart was so full that she
saw only the joy and the happiness there".
She is the eldest of the Balicki children. Great responsibilities were all fallen upon her, after
her mother was taken by the Nazis, therefor she is firm, authoritative andstrict, she runs her
family with an iron fist, as it says,"Go on your knees and apologies", she also has a
marvellous leader ship. Although she is frightened she does not show it and manages to keep
P a g e 11 | 18
her little sister Bronia's spirits up by telling stories and by remembering how much she likes
to draw, thereby giving her something to focus on. She is a natural born teacher and children
instinctively listen to her. After the war, she seems to be trying to recapture her lost childhood
by regressing emotionally and following her mother everywhere for fear of losing her again,
but this soon wears off and she goes on to study at university in Zurich and becoming a
teacher in her Swiss hometown.
Edek Balicki is younger to Ruth Balicki but as the only boy, he feels the pressure to step into
the role of provider and her sister’s protector. He is good at both, providing food by
smuggling from German supplies and providing safe shelter in the woods by identifying the
safest and driest area and next trees to use as shelter. After he gets arrested for smuggling by
Germans we see that his spirit of survival is not same, they have diminished. Before the war
he seems to have been physically strong but his time in prison camp leaves him weakened by
tuberculosis and his health does not return until well after the war. When he loses hope for his
survival, Ruth shows him the ray of hope. He is a bold young man with little fear.
Bronia Balicki is the youngest Balicki child and is too young to remember life before the
war. Because she was shielded from much by her siblings and was still a child at the end of
the war, she was the one most easily able to adapt back to normal life again. Through her the
author has projected the true innocence of a child’s heart and mind. Bronia loves to draw and
is placed in a gifted program in Switzerland because of her talent as an artist.
Jan is a street child orphaned in the war and no amount of searching after the war helps to
find any of his family members at all. He is quite wild and almost feral because of taking care
of himself on the streets of Warsaw. He is talented and clever in doing all the things that are
illegal, such as fighting and pick pocketing. Jan is very combative and hates Germans and
soldiers, as there are instances mentioned in the book where he tries to hurt soldiers without
any provocation from their end, so it is likely that he saw his family taken away by the
German military. He is oddly sentimental about seemingly worthless things, such as three
dead fleas given to him by an escaped chimpanzee, and it is this love of acquiring and
hoarding in his little wooden box that ultimately brings him together with the Balicki children
and their quest to find their parents as Ruth recognizes the silver sword in his box from her
house. Jan doesn’t have any special bond with anyone except Ruth whom he considers her
Mother. He loves animals and shares a special bond with them.
Jan who is presented as a careless and a naughty child turns into a caring and a responsible
member of Balicki family. The author has tried to project the aftermath of war in terms of
hatred, distrust and rejection through the character of Jan and how it requires a lot of effort,
love and care to bring back the normalcy in lives of these children.
Ivan is a sentry at the Russian outpost in Warsaw. He has a soft spot for the children and he
always brings them supplies for the little help at the school which Ruth runs, or things they
might need for their journey, such as shoes for Bronia, or chocolate bars. Although Jan
dislikes him, at first Ivan is tolerant of Jan's combativeness and tries to reach him through
fixing his broken box.

P a g e 12 | 18
Kurt and Frau Wolf: - The Wolff's are a kind couple who shelter the children on their route
to Switzerland and help them escape from the Burgomaster who is appointed to send them
(all refugees) back to Poland. Their own son was killed in the war and they begin to look
upon the children like their own. They ask Jan if he would like to live with them permanently
and although he would, he declines as he feels like one of the Balicki kids. Kurt Wolff comes
up with the idea of the children using his son's old kayaks to escape. Through their kindness
and ingenuity, the Wolff's are instrumental in enabling the children to get to Switzerland.
Joe Wolski is an American soldier of Polish descent and because of this he identifies with the
children right away. He drives them to safety and assists in their being found by their father.
All the characters in The Silver Sword are presented with positive character traits. Balicki
Children including Jan are the protagonist and the developing characters of the story. They
are adapting and finding out their way out of the problems presented to them based on their
rationality. The characters are shown growing and developing along with the progression of
the events in the story.
The relationship between the characters is based on the suffering of war, loss, sympathy,
love, care and understanding. Wolfs are sympathetic to Balicki Children because they
themselves have lost their son in the war. Jan considers Ruth to be his guardian and mother
because besides being strict with him, she is also caring and loving like a mother. Edek being
the eldest Balicki child understands the responsibility he had to handle but loses hope and
courage, he also becomes emotionally dependent on Ruth for his survival. Ivan and Joe are
soldiers but still show the human traits of affection, love and sympathy towards the war
sufferer Balicki Children.
Setting has played an important role in designing the destiny and characteristics of the
characters of the story. The experience of war and the difficulties faced by the Balicki
children makes them stronger emotionally and rational in decision making.
Jan though he takes time to adjust with the soldiers and trust people, in the end under the
influence of the Balicki family, he learns to live a normal life. Bronia being the youngest in
the Balicki children was always shielded by Ruth from the hardships of the war but the
images of war which her young mind has adapted are visible through her painting after the
war but with time, after she is settled in Switzerland with her parents, her painting slowly
begin to change. Edek also recovers from tuberculosis and goes to university for his further
studies. Ruth who has achieved maturity very early in her life due to handling the
responsibility of her siblings in the absence of her parents, wants to relive that childhood
which she has lost, when she meets her mother. She follows her mother where ever she goes
like a small baby, maybe she doesn’t want to lose her again. Ruth also recovers after certain
months and joins the university for her further studies.

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Plot
Exposition-The Balicki family is introduced as war is declared and Germany wants to
overrun surrounding countries, and unfortunately for them being polish made them one of the
German soldier’s targets. Ruth, Edek and Bronia are three children who lost their parents
(Joseph and Margret Balicki) when they were taken away by the Nazi's. Joseph the father
who escaped made his way to Warsaw where he meets a boy called Jan and gave him a silver
sword in hope that if he will ever meet his three children, he would help them to lead to
Switzerland, the place Joseph was going.
Rising Action- The three children went on with their lives as best as they could without their
mother and father, Edek become the main care taker of the family, gathering their food, and
providing them with a home. But when Edek was arrested by soldiers for smuggling, Bronia
and Ruth had to learn to fend for themselves. Edek now hasn't been seen for two years.
Climax- This is where things began to get better for Bronia and Ruth, by pure luck they had
stumbled across Jan. The boy with the silver sword. Then things got even better for them,
Edek their big brother had come back to them no matter what struggles he had to face. With
the help of their new friend Jan the Balicki children made their way to Switzerland where
they will hopefully meet their father. They began their long journey to Switzerland in search
of their family. Along the way they stumbled across a lovely couple who lived on a farm and
helps them to run away from the Burgomaster.
Falling Action-Edek becomes severely ill and they all reach to a camp where they meet Joe
Wolski, who is the American soldier of polish decent. He helps them to find their parents and
finally we see a happy reunion of the children with their parents. The lateral development in
the character of Ruth, Edek, Bronia and Jan is also one of the significant feature of the falling
action.

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Symbolism
The Silver Sword:-It is a device which is used to tie all the threads together. When Joseph
manages to escape from his prison camp and walk all the way to Warsaw, he finds his home
bombed and his family gone, nobody knows where. In the ruins is a little silver sword, a letter
opener that he had given to his wife years before. He gives this to a boy in the ruins, asking
him, if he sees any of the Balicki children, to tell them that he has gone to Switzerland to
their grandparents’ house. Traumatised little Jan forgets the details but guards the sword as a
precious treasure. Here the sliver sword becomes the symbol of Joseph’s hope of finding his
children.
When Ruth finds Jan ill in the street, she takes him in, and later recognises the silver sword,
they gather the essentials and know they must leave Warsaw and go to Switzerland. From
that point, the sword becomes a kind of talisman, and plays an important part in their journey.
To the children it is a symbol of their father being alive and the hope that they will one day be
reunited.
It is also a symbol of Jan's role in the Balicki family and to Jan it is a sort of talisman that
keeps them all safe. He views it as a symbol of safety and their ability to make their journey
to Switzerland as a group without losing anyone on the way. The sword symbolizes the
family being safe and the fulfillment of their shared hope that it will somehow reunite them
all again.
Princess of the Brazen Mountains: -Bronia is the Princess who flies on grey-blue wings,
rescued by a Prince who has searched for her for seven years, this price refers to her father
who has been searching for them. The Prince takes the Princess back to his mountain
kingdom where they live happily ever after, just as Bronia believes their father will take them
back to his "mountain kingdom", Switzerland.
Switzerland as The Promised Land: -Nothing will dissuade the children from going
towards Switzerland as it symbolizes finding their parents, safety and everything that was
good about the world before the Germans invaded Poland. They are resolute in their plan to
reach the promised country and determined to find that it is all they dream it to be.
Switzerland symbolizes a new start and the past being put behind them.

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Conclusion
The Silver Sword is a delightful story that touches our heart strings. We start with a family of
the parents and their three children, Ruth, Edek and Boronia. When war devastates and
separates this family, they must grow up faster, and sacrifice their childhood and most
importantly, find their family.
The Balicki children face many dangers along the way, such as the Nazi Camps. With many
threats that the children faced along the way, they also made new friends, even one with a
connection to their father, whose name was Jan. With Jan’s help the end seems just a bit more
hopeful.
With the gorgeous characters, and amazing plotline and writing style, Serrailer gives us just a
glimpse of what children in those times had to struggle with. His style of writing is very
vivid.
The characters and plotline are wonderful. In conclusion, the Silver Sword was a delightful
tale that everyone should read at least once in their life.

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