my childhood and the Second World War
Alona Frankel was just two years old when Germany invaded Poland. After a Polish carpenter agreed to hide her parents but not her, Alona's parents desperately handed her over to a greedy woman who agreed to hide her only as long as they continued to send money. Isolated from her parents and living among pigs, horses, mice, and lice, Alona taught herself to read and drew on scraps of paper. In time, the money ran out and Alona was tossed into her parents' hiding place, at this point barely recognizing them. After Poland's liberation, Alona's mother was admitted to a terminal hospital for tuberculosis and Alona was handed over to a wealthy, arrogant family of Jewish survivors who eventually cast her off into an orphanage. Despite these daily horrors and dangers surrounding her, Alona's imagination would not let her give up. Today she lives in Israel and has written and illustrated over fifty children's books, including the international best seller, Once Upon a Potty.
