Content Warning: This section discusses the Holocaust and antisemitism.

In September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. The Nazis intended to erode Polish culture and exploit the Poles for forced labor. They also enacted policies of antisemitic persecution and violence, eventually establishing the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, where all the Jews in Warsaw were sent to be confined. However, rather than destroy the Polish spirit, Nazi efforts in the country only led to the formation of an underground resistance force. This spirit of resistance is represented in the book through covert organizations like Żegota. This same spirit of resistance also emerged in the ghetto, which witnessed the largest revolt ever carried out by the Jews during WWII: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was a resistance movement by Polish Jews in retaliation for the deportation of their people to the Treblinka extermination camp. A number of the characters in the book meet their end there, including both Bina Blonksi’s and Dina Behrman’s family members; it is the place from which Jakub miraculously manages to escape. A Jewish group called the Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB), which means “Jewish Fighting Organization,” was responsible for the revolt.