Well this book made me cry ive never heard Edna's story before but im glad I have now. What an amazing story and so well retold. I really liked the information bits at the start of each new part as they helped me understand what was going on in the timeline. Everyone should be made to read this book and see how war effect not ony one person but the people around them.
I will be recommending this book to others

Thank you to Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the prepublication digital copy of this book in return for an honest review. This is an amazing read - heartbreaking, anger making, tear inducing, raw, unbelievable if one didn’t know it is true!
What an absolutely awful life Little Edna had, and what courage and fortitude she demonstrated in the most horrific of circumstances. I literally read the book in a couple of days, it made me feel depressed, horrified, sick, disgusted etc etc, but I was absorbed with it. I hadn’t known specifics of the Polish Jews wartime, so learnt a lot from these memoirs. I totally agree with the author Janet that these personal stories should be told, so that those of us outside of the orbit of people so severely affected by this worst of times become aware and the memories aren’t lost. I never cease to be amazed that people can live through and survive such awful traumas, not unscathed but enough to pass on hope and love to others. Highly recommended but be prepared to be shocked.

What an absolute amazing book. I could not put it down. Easily five stars. Recommending to everyone!

“Warsaw stood magnificent along the Vistula River- a tapestry of monument-lined boulevards, elegant palaces, verdant parks, and classical bistros…What a marvelous time to be alive-a toddler blessed with a loving family…Music infused our family life…We would sing…after dinner, knocking rhythmically on the table, filling the night with laughter.”

September 1, 1939, Edna Szurek, just shy of five years old, attended her best friend’s birthday party along with her older sister, Miriam. Suddenly, without warning, bombs fell…walls collapsed. The naivety of childhood ended, and with it, safety. How would one get home amid the rubble and fallen bricks? “Miriam’s hand remained locked with mine, a lifeline in chaos. Her presence was my only certainty.” Arriving home after a two day ordeal “...we lost ourselves in music and movement, laughter and love, temporarily insulated from the new reality that waited beyond our walls.” Still, Miriam with Edna in tow, would go to the cinema. They especially enjoyed movies with singing and dancing.

It started with German patrols, on foot or in vehicles, enemy forces slowly surrounding Warsaw, dropping bombs while concurrently issuing an ultimatum to surrender. New restrictions were issued daily. “Row after row of (soldiers), their boots striking the cobblestones in perfect unison, creating that terrible rhythm that would echo in my nightmares for years to come.”

In the year 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto was created. Heavily guarded, there would be no passage between the Ghetto and the “Aryan side” of Warsaw. As the confined Jewish population increased exponentially, food rations became scarce. In order to feed their family, six year old Edna and twelve year old Miriam were schooled in how to squeeze through a crack in the Ghetto wall, purchase food on the Aryan side and slip back undetected. “Two parallel worlds existed, separated only by a wall of brick and mortar.”.

Promises were made to ensure that able-bodied men from the Ghetto were found for a German construction project. If Papa was proven to be a valuable asset, the family might be able to resettle in the east. Lies!!! Men boarding the transport were ordered to leave their suitcases. They were told that their possessions would follow. From the Aryan side, Edna and Miriam witnessed the deportations. Again, piles of suitcases were left behind. “What began as desperate attempts to feed our family soon became something more. We discovered that beyond the wall, we could be different people entirely-Polish children who sang for coins rather than…marked for death.”

Edna and Miriam spent four years on the streets of Warsaw posing as Polish orphans. They sang Polish folk songs and harmonized in songs they learned from the movies. They sang and danced for tips. Sometimes a family or a widow would shelter them for the night. It was however imperative that they never develop a set pattern of movement. They must always be vigilant watching for those who might betray them. Take, for example, Papa’s friend who promised to provide the sisters with bed and board. The next day, the wife requested that both girls go with her to the market. Spotting the Gestapo in their line of vision, in unison, they kicked the wife and ran in different directions to evade capture, hiding in alleyways until the danger passed.

Edna and Miriam Szurek were destined to live life on the Aryan side of Warsaw posing as Catholic Polish orphans Stefcia and Marysia-Marja Skolkowska. “With each repetition of my new name, I felt my old self recede…Each repetition felt like swallowing a stone…The false name scraping against my throat where Edna used to live.”

How to embrace life on the Aryan side of Warsaw. “You must pretend you are a person who belongs there. Walk around during the day, take the tram, visit the cinema, go to the library, sit at cafes-live the same day-to-day life that they do…Live for the future, not the past. Talk as if you have much to look forward to.” These lessons for living proved to be vital when, at age nine, Kajtek nee Stefcia nee Edna became the youngest soldier in the Polish Home Army. She traveled during gunfire, sometimes through sewers, as a courier routing orders to field commanders. As a street performer, Katjek knew every street, every alley and every tram route. For her valor, she earned an audience with the Pope. He thought she was Catholic.

Edna Stefania Brill entrusted her daughter-in-law, author Janet Bond Brill with her recollections, reinforced by historical archives, to tell her story in this posthumous memoir. With “a lifetime of insight, introspection, and keen observation”, Edna personified “strength in adversity”. A photo of Edna at her 50th Wedding Gala shows a remarkable woman whose “laughter…could brighten the darkest day.”

A highly recommended read.

Thank you Amsterdam Publishers and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The harrowing memoir of a young girl caught in Hitler’s hate and the life she spent overcoming the trauma.

First book of the year was definitely a banger!! Couldn’t put it down. It is told from the point of view of Edna, a polish jew living in Warsaw, and each section of the book, roughly a year in her life, is so vastly different from the last. She begins as a happy, sassy five year old from a very well to do family… then the war begins with a literal bang while she is at a friend’s birthday party across town.

Things proceed slowly at first, and we witness how it becomes less ideal to be Jewish, but through the eyes of a small child who doesn’t really understand it all. Then the formerly fancy part of town is turned into a ghetto. More people move in. Conditions get worse. Then the wall is built and it suddenly begins to accelerate quickly. Men disappear. Food is scarce. Their brother Yakov has been smuggling food in from the Aryan side of the wall and he involves Edna and their sister Miriam in this as well.

On the other side of the wall they get to be normal kids again and it’s such a stark contrast to their lives in the ghetto.

Then it’s decided that they need to get out, and live on the other side of the wall. Their older sister Hannah is meant to join them but she won’t leave.

The family who is meant to shelter the girls has an informant, so they soon end up on the streets, where they use the guise of catholic orphans. From a family of musicians, they make their money singing on street corners, and are often given a room at night from kindly strangers… and eventually one of these kind folks is in the Polish Home Guard, which they too join.

The Warsaw Uprising was horrific to read about, from how mercilessly the Germans killed civilians as payback, to how the Russians - their supposed allies - just hung back to let Warsaw fall.

The girls end up in a POW camp, and at the end of the war end up resettled in England to finish their education, and it’s wild to see Edna - a decorated war hero and child soldier - now just a boarding school girl!

I liked how each section started with what her new name would be. It was interesting to see how she managed to forget some parts of her past so thoroughly, that she truly began to believe she was Catholic, and she even forgot that she’d had a brother at first.

This one is a keeper.

What an incredible story of resilience and survival, told through the eyes of a child. This WW2 story tells the story of Edna, a young Jewish girl and her family, and how she survives the ghetto, persecution, and the Warsaw Uprising. It's a brutally honest account and testimony to a courageous girl. I loved this book and think it will become a classic holocaust text.

Sobbed the whole way through this book, you definitely need hankies. Highly recommend this book, was extremely interesting.

The true story of Edna Stefania Brill, a Holocaust survivor and WW2 child hero, as written by her daughter-in-law.
Little Edna was four in 1939, the year Hitler decided to invade Poland. Before this, she had been growing up in a large, loving Jewish family, in a rather affluent section of Warsaw. Once the Occupation began, living conditions steadily declined for Jews. The walls went up around what was referred to as “The Warsaw Ghetto”, and thousands were packed into crowded spaces without adequate food, water, or sanitation. When the “liquidation” began, Edna and her older sister Miriam, with the guidance of their brother Yakov, managed to escape the systematic roundups and avoid being deported to labor camps. Using their wits, hiding their identity as Jewish, and with the help of a few kind souls they met along the way, these children survived, unlike so many others. By the time the Warsaw Uprising was being planned by partisans, Miriam and Edna had established themselves as Resistance Workers, at the ages of 17 and 9.
This story of extreme determination and bravery, held onto in the midst of unspeakable horrors that no child should ever experience, was absolutely unputdownable. I will certainly be purchasing a copy after its release in January 2026.

*I received a digital copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are strictly my own.*

Edna born in Poland to a happy large family but her life changed after the start of World War 2, She and her sister had to hid their Jewish identity,
and many kindly people helped. They both became Resistance workers and survived numerous horrors.

What an amazing, brave little girl. What a story! Enjoyed every minute of it, even although I had a box of hankies right beside me.

This book is well written by someone who knows and understands the horrors of Ghetto Life. Stories like this need to be told, so that future generations know the bravery and resilience of this time.

Thank you to the Netgalley Coop, to Janet Bond Brill for bringing Edna's story to life.

Little Edna's War is a powerfully moving true story about Edna Szurek's survival as a child in Nazi-occupied Warsaw in World War II. Author Janet Bond Brill is Edna's daughter in law who carefully and thoughtfully wrote Edna's memoirs, beautifully capturing her fears, terror, tragedies, grit, determination, and hope. The weighty and rich words are nothing short of heart stopping and electrifying.

As a Holocaust reader who has learned from reading well over one hundred books about this horrendous time in history, I was particularly stunned and aghast by this one. Human beings are capable of incomprehensible cruelty on one hand yet extreme kindness, enterprise, resilience, and cleverness on another. It is critical for survivors to bear witness and tell their stories and important for everyone to listen and learn from them.

Edna was only four when the first bombs changed her life as a Jew in Warsaw forever. Her affluent family was large and loving, cultured and musical. She and her older sister, Miriam, had an unbreakable bond which contributed to saving their lives on several occasions. They escaped the Jewish Ghetto and spent four years on the streets singing and dancing for money on street corners on the Aryan side. The nights kind people did not take them in were spent in churches. Miraculously, they became verified non-Jewish citizens and had to live as being Catholic without any errors. Edna was only nine when she became the youngest soldier in the Polish Resistance along with Miriam, earning medals. From singing on street corners they knew the city well. Every single step led to the next remarkable step. They lived through the Uprising, Polish surrender, starvation, disease, degradation, and POW camp. I like that the author includes the aftermath and lives of those in the book, too, for the complete picture.

Little Edna's War is beyond phenomenal. My brain is spinning and I am at a loss of words to describe my intense feelings about this masterpiece. Edna and Miriam and their other family members were heroines and heroes. I will never forget their stories.