Adam is the narrator and protagonist of the book. He is a non-religious Jewish man and widower from Poland; his late wife, Kasia, was a Polish Catholic woman from a wealthy and well-connected family. Adam is invited to join the Oneg Shabbat project by Emanuel Ringelblum because of his work. Adam was once a teacher of foreign languages in Warsaw and currently has a job with the Aid Society while also running underground classes in English literature for a few students in the ghetto.

Adam is an optimist at heart. Despite the many personal losses and deaths he experienced before the ghetto, as well as the circumstances that land him there, Adam continues to believe that things will soon change. He has a generally positive outlook on life, an attitude that almost borders on naïveté. He tries his best to protect the children in his classes from further sadness by ensuring that they are only exposed to happy poetry and even attempts to raise their flagging spirits by claiming that he has heard news of an impending German surrender. When Adam finally gives up hope and decides to trade

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