Aranka Siegal (born Aranka Davidowitz on June 10, 1930) is a
writer, Holocaust survivor, and recipient of the Newbery Honor and Boston
Globe-Horn Book Award, both awarded to her in 1982. She is the author of three
books, the best known of which is Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in
Hungary 1930-1944, a memoir of her childhood in Hungary before her 12-month
imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz – Birkenau and
Bergen-Belsen. Other works of hers include Grace in the Wilderness: After the
Liberation 1945-1948 and Memories of Babi. Her novels are sold worldwide, and
have been translated into several different languages including, but not
limited to, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, and German.
Siegal herself speaks six languages and is the fifth child of seven children.
