In the town square, Damian whips Aleks bloody. It doesn’t matter whether Aleks is guilty or not; the villagers need a scapegoat to blame for all of their suffering. Suddenly, two soldiers appear carrying the brutalized body of Baruch Beiler’s wife. In the moment it takes for the crowd to realize that Aleks has been falsely accused, he disappears.

Minka narrates her story. She describes her teenage life in Poland. Her father was a baker and her newlywed and pregnant older sister, Basia, sold bread in their shop. One of young Minka’s favorite pastimes is imagining a perfect world run by herself and her best friend Darija Horowicz. Darija thinks a perfect world would be devoid of Germans but Minka believes that lumping all Germans together makes you just as bad as them. Although they have heard distant stories of Kristallnacht and other atrocities, Minka’s mother Hana refuses to move the family and leave behind a lifetime of memories. Slowly, however, things begin to change in town. Minka goes on her first-ever date with Josek, an older boy who is enamored by her writing. Josek tells her that the upióry in her Ania story are a brilliant symbol for how Jews are viewed by the Reich.