Aranka Siegal was raised in Beregszasz, Hungary, as one of seven children. When Aranka was thirteen years old, she and her family were relocated from their home to the Beregszasz brick factory, which had been converted into a ghetto to accommodate Jews during World War II. They were sent to Auschwitz shortly after. She and her older sister were separated from the rest of the family when they arrived on May 9, 1944, and they never saw them again. The two sisters were eventually taken to Bergen-Belsen, where they were liberated by the British First Army in 1945.

Aranka and her sister were then brought to Sweden by the Swedish Red Cross, where they resided for three and a half years until emigrating to the United States. Through her grandmother, Babi, Aranka learned to value books from an early age. When Jewish children were expelled from public schools, she was just twelve years old. What works her family had and what few others she could get became personal treasures, allowing Read More chevron_right

Aranka Siegal was raised in Beregszasz, Hungary, as one of seven children. When Aranka was thirteen years old, she and her family were relocated from their home to the Beregszasz brick factory, which had been converted into a ghetto to accommodate Jews during World War II. They were sent to Auschwitz shortly after. She and her older sister were separated from the rest of the family when they arrived on May 9, 1944, and they never saw them again. The two sisters were eventually taken to Bergen-Belsen, where they were liberated by the British First Army in 1945.

Aranka and her sister were then brought to Sweden by the Swedish Red Cross, where they resided for three and a half years until emigrating to the United States. Through her grandmother, Babi, Aranka learned to value books from an early age. When Jewish children were expelled from public schools, she was just twelve years old. What works her family had and what few others she could get became personal treasures, allowing her to escape from her world -- a world that no longer made sense.Aranka sought to capture the human side of the conflict in her own books. She captures the emotions of a little Jewish girl caught up in circumstances that would devastate her world in Upon the Head of the Goat.

The story continues in Grace in the Wilderness, but Aranka does not focus on life in the camps. Instead, she narrates the war's aftermath, and how she and her sister had to relearn how to live. Memories of Babi, her most recent book, is a collection of stories based on the author's childhood vacations to her grandmother's farm in Ukraine in the years leading up to World War II. Aranka chose to write for young people since they will be the historians of the future.