Introduction

They tried to erase her.
Instead, she became a legend.

At just seven years old, Edna Szurek risked everything to smuggle food through holes in the Warsaw Ghetto wall, knowing each step could be her last. By the age of 10, she was the youngest decorated member of the Polish resistance. And by the end of the war, she had defied every Nazi plan for her destruction.

Though she fought armed with a pistol, Edna's true weapons were wit, bravery, and an unshakable love for her sister. Disguised as a Catholic girl, she even earned a medal from Pope Pius XII, who never knew he was honoring a Jewish child who had outsmarted the Reich.

Drawn from over five hours of her firsthand testimony recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation, this powerful memoir traces Edna's impossible journey: from the ashes of a shattered birthday celebration to the brutal reality of a POW camp, escaping the deadly confines of the Warsaw Ghetto to find the hidden safety of a convent sanctuary.

Edna Szurek should not have survived the Holocaust. But she did. And her story will stay with you forever.

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Discussion Questions

From the author:

1. Edna survived by becoming someone else—a Catholic girl named Stefcia. What do you think it cost her psychologically to erase her identity so completely? How does trauma shape who we become?

2. At nine years old, Edna fought Nazis with a pistol. How does her story challenge our ideas about childhood, innocence, and what children are capable of?

3. Edna’s life is mapped onto the most consequential addresses of the twentieth century:

• Born at Mila 18 — the very building that would become the doomed command bunker of the Jewish resistance, where Mordechai Anielewicz and his fighters made their last stand
• Survived the Warsaw Ghetto — smuggling food through its walls as a seven-year-old
• Fought in the Warsaw Uprising — as a nine-year-old courier on streets she once walked to school
• Endured Oberlangen — the only all-female POW camp in Nazi Germany
• Stood before the Pope in Rome — honored as a Catholic hero while hiding her Jewish soul
• Arrived in Israel — where her brother had co-founded the Ghetto Fighters’ Kibbutz
• Married a man from the Exodus 1947 — the ship that became a symbol of Jewish determination to reach the homeland
• Built a life in America — the ultimate destination of so many survivors
Her geography is Holocaust history. She didn’t just witness these places—she was shaped by them, scarred by them, and ultimately transcended them. How does place shape destiny?

4. Pope Pius XII honored Edna as a Catholic war hero, never knowing she was Jewish. What does this moment reveal about survival, identity, and the masks we wear?

5. Edna didn’t just survive—she “lived magnificently,” building a family and a joyful life in America. How is living well an act of defiance against those who wanted her dead?

6. Edna’s brother didn’t recognize her after the war until he sang a Yiddish lullaby. What does this moment say about memory, family, and reclaiming identity?

7. How does hearing this story through a child’s eyes change the way we understand the Holocaust?

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