Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide contain descriptions of wartime violence, antisemitism, genocide, abuse, and murder in the context of the Holocaust.

The Prologue is set in the fall of 1965, when Leyson is attending a reunion of “Schindler Jews” in Los Angeles. Leyson is now 35 years old, married, and working as a teacher. He is worried that Oskar Schindler will not recognize him due to the 20 years that have passed since they last met and the fact that he was then a starving 15-year-old. To his great surprise, Schindler recognizes him immediately. Leyson reflects on Schindler’s brave efforts to save the lives of over a thousand Jews during the Holocaust.

Leon describes his idyllic rural childhood in Narewka, northeastern Poland, in the 1930s, where “life seemed an endless, carefree journey” (7). The town is old-fashioned, with unpaved roads, no electricity or indoor plumbing, and horse and wagon as the main form of transportation. 

Leon is the youngest of five children; he has three brothers, Tsalig, David, and Hershel, and a sister, Pesza, who is his father’s favorite. Leon idolizes his brother Tsalig, who is a mechanical wizard, but his brother David is his “closest companion” (16).