A small band of children move carefully among the maze of ruins which in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. These are young Polish patriots secretly working for their country's freedom. Each sound, each person who passes could mean deportation or death.

Before the war, Jan, Stas, Wanda, Marja, and the others had been ordinary children, growing up and being cared for by their families. But now those families are gone—dispersed or dead—and all that remains is an urgent need for unity and the vision of a free Poland.

Eva-Lis Wuorio has drawn from war-time records and Polish government documents to tell the true story of these children: the underground newspaper which they published at great risk; the desperate flight across occupied Europe in search of help. But beneath the grim facts of war and oppression, there is yet a kind of hope.

When they took over Poland, the Germans had outlawed Chopin's music as a dangerous symbol of nationalism. Young Poles everywhere responded by singing the Military Polonaise louder than ever before. In this most moving of all her books, Eva-Lis Wuorio makes us understand both their defiance and their courage.

From the dust jacket