The Little Liar

Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of genocide, antisemitism, graphic violence, infanticide, suicide and suicidal ideation, gun violence, and panic attacks.

Sebastian and Frannie have been crammed into a cattle train along with many other Jewish people. As they all speculate about where the train is taking them, one man yells that they’re being taken to be killed, while the others argue that a young boy on the train platform had promised that they are being taken to “new homes.” The man forces a grate off the train window, and the people in the train car decide to push Frannie out of the window because she is small in stature and does not have any family aboard the train. After Frannie is pushed out, the train quickly slows to a halt, and an armed German officer enters the train car. Sebastian watches all of the passengers step away from the window in fear. Sebastian promises to never forgive his younger brother, Nico, and he swears that he will “make him pay for all this” (6).

The narrator’s identity is revealed to be the personification of truth. Truth asks readers to trust this story about a boy who changes names and lives after the Holocaust.