“Kajtek,” age 9 – Warsaw Uprising, 1944 Child courier of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa).

Stefcia (Kajtek), age 9, during the Warsaw Uprising, 1944.

Before she was Kajtek, she was Stefcia.

Before she was Stefcia, she was Edna.

She was not yet 5 years old, small and blonde, standing at a birthday party in Warsaw when the first bombs fell. Before that moment, she had been a child who was read to every night by a family of ten who loved her.

One of those books was Kaytek the Wizard.

She was too young to read it herself. But she remembered the boy, a mischievous Warsaw child who discovers he can do magic and begins to lead a double life. Powerful and hidden, dressed as ordinary.

In 1944, a 9-year-old Jewish girl hiding as a Catholic Polish child became a courier for the Armia Krajowa during the Warsaw Uprising.

They asked her for a nom de guerre.

She had no way of knowing what she had chosen.

She chose the name of a fictional boy. She did not know she was also choosing the memory of a man who had just died with children like her.

The boy in the book had been created by Janusz Korczak, a pediatrician, writer, and one of the most revered advocates for children in........

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