is a story of love between Wanda, a Polish girl, and Willie, a Jewish boy during the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. It’s about the many forms that heroism and love take in the face of mass destruction.
Wanda and Willie are songwriters. Willie’s father, Morris, owns a clothing factory and employs Wanda’s father, Henry. The Germans invade Poland and the pressure on the Jews and the Poles increases. Jews are being brought into the ghetto from the countryside and being shipped in boxcars to the death camps. When the ghetto is sealed, Henry goes to work for the Nazis and tries to get Wanda to leave the ghetto. But Wanda, now pregnant and in love with Willie, will not leave.
The Nazis turn Morris’ factory over to Henry and force Morris into slave labor in his own factory. When Morris’ sons, Willie & Joe, come to rescue him Henry kills Morris and Willie kills Henry. When Willie returns home from this violence, he finds his mother, Mollie and Wanda have disappeared. His fears are realized when he sees mother’s face through the bars of a boxcar window. He assumes Wanda is with her. In panic and despair he races back to his father’s factory which has now become the headquarters of the Jewish resistance. Willie joins the resistance and contributes his skills as a propagandist.
Willie eventually finds Wanda hiding in a water tower where Mollie had hidden her just before her capture. He takes Wanda to her mother’s house outside the ghetto where two Nazis who had been informed of their presence by neighbors capture them. Though wounded, Willie manages to kill both Nazis and they escape into the forest hoping to find protection with Wanda’s brother who has joined the Polish resistance. Wanda’s brother, however, threatens to kill Willie to avenge the death of his father but Wanda’s mother intervenes and gives Wanda her brother’s gun. Willie collapses and dies from his wound. Wanda, with a new sense self-reliance and courage is determined to survive the war and bear their child.
©2001 William Harper & Frederick Feirstein
All Rights reserved
