The Silver Sword

The Silver Sword is a children's novel by Ian Serraillier, originally illustrated by C. Walter Hodges and published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape in 1956, then by Puffin Books in 1960. It has also been published in the United States under the title Escape From Warsaw.

The story is about a Polish family in the Second World War and is based on fact, although fictional names are given to some of the places mentioned. The account of the Red Army on the march is derived from eyewitness accounts in Jan Stransky's East Wind over Prague, and in an afterword to the 2003 edition the author's daughter, Jane Serraillier Grossfeld, identifies an article about the Pestalozzi children's village as a further source.

The children's parents are taken by the Nazis, which leaves three siblings to manage on their own in occupied Warsaw and then as displaced people after the war. The children are named Ruth, Bronia and Edek, and the story is dated to Warsaw in 1942, which is where the family is separated and the three of them are left to manage on their own.