Aranka Siegal
born Aranka Davidowitz on June 10, 1930 is a writer, Holocaust survivor, and beneficiary
of the Newbery Honor and Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, both presented to her in
1982. She is the author of 3 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 sentence in the Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz
– Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen. Other works of hers take in Grace in the
Wilderness: After the Liberation 1945-1948 and Memories of Babi. Her novels are
sold globally, and have been converted into several different languages
including, but not limited to, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese,
Dutch, and German. Siegal herself talks 6 languages and is the fifth child of
seven children.