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Title

Janina Bauman. Winter in the Morning: A Young Girl's Life in the Warsaw Ghetto and Beyond (London: Virago Press, 1986).

"The coming-of-age of a young girl during World War II. She was born to a wealthy doctor, then she and her family were rounded up and imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto to live a disease-ridden, hand-to-mouth existence, always in the presence of death. The family then escaped to the "Aryan" side where they had to slip from one safe-house to another, in constant fear of discovery and under the constant threat of blackmail ... Janina Bauman was a year older than Anne Frank when the Second World War began but, unlike The Diary of Anne Frank, this is a story of survival. When Hitler's decree forced her family into the Warsaw Ghetto, Janina, an intelligent, lively girl, suddenly found herself in a cramped flat, hiding with other Jewish families. At first even curfews and the casual cruelty meted out by the German occupiers could not dim her passion for books, boys and romance. Then came the raids, and Janina, with her sister and mother, had to keep on the move, hiding in the ruins of the ghetto to avoid being one of thousands rounded up every day and deported to the camps. Their escape to the 'Aryan' side was followed by two years in hiding, taking shelter with those willing to help them and living in constant fear of betrayal. Told through her teenage diaries, giving her story a rare immediacy, this is the extraordinary tale of a passionate young woman's courage and survival."--Publisher description.