The Boy On The Wooden Box

As Leon leaves the camp, he feels “confused, weak, and ecstatic all at once” (166). With satisfaction, he and the other Jews watch the defeated Nazi soldiers filing past. The Czech government arranges transportation for the Jews back to Poland. Leon’s family decides to return to Kraków.

Once back in Kraków, the family stays with some old acquaintances, then finds lodging in a dormitory for refugees. Moshe resumes his job in the glass factory. Leon’s family is shocked to learn that in 1941, the Nazi Einsatzgruppen swept through Narewka and murdered the Jews of the village, including Hershel and their other relatives.

Of Kraków’s former Jewish population of 60,000, only a few thousand remain. Some Polish gentiles are not happy at the return of the Jews, and there are anti-Semitic backlashes. The family decides that they must leave Kraków for safety’s sake. David and Pesza travel to Czechoslovakia. With the help of a Zionist organization, Leon and his parents are smuggled by train to Salzburg, Austria, where a United Nations relief organization assigns them to a displaced persons camp in Wetzlar, Germany, in the American occupation zone.

At Wetzlar, the family is well taken care of, and Leon strikes up new friendships and begins to regain his health.