The Powder King’s Window

Pierdomenico Baccalario & Alice Barberini

In the attic of a house in the Lublin ghetto, the Jewish boy Henio has found his own secret kingdom. Henio shows this special place to his best friend, who is also the narrator of the story. The attic has magical roof windows: when the windows are open, the horrors of the war are seen; if closed, a different world is disclosed, perhaps even a peaceful one. One night, Henio runs to his friend, who is not Jewish, to convince him to run away together, but the friend is too afraid and decides to stay. In the morning, there is a round-up, but Henio has disappeared. His friend looks for him everywhere, even in the attic. There, on the window glass, he finds a child’s fingerprints and a greeting.
Pierdomenico Baccalario has written a moving story to remove the dust from the history of the Lublin ghetto and imagine a different epilogue, also for Henio Zytomirski.

Pierdomenico Baccalario is a writer and journalist, his books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into over 30 languages.

Alice Barberini has studied art in Ravenna and fine art restoration in Florence and is since 2007 working as a book illustrator. Orecchio acerbo has published Ernest and Snow White written by Luca Tortolini (2022), In the Tube (2020), Hamelin (2017) and The Dog and the Moon (2015).

Henio Zytomirski (March 25, 1933 –Nov 9, 1942) was born in Lublin, Poland, and died at the age of 9 at Majdanek concentration camp. Henio became an icon of the Holocaust, not only in Lublin but all over Poland. The “Letters to Henio” project has been held in Lublin on Holocaust Remembrance Day since 2005.

 

Books illustrated by Alice Barberini