Content Warning: This section discusses wartime violence, the Holocaust and antisemitism, and death.

Lidia is the primary protagonist of the novel. She is 12 years old at the novel’s start and grows older over the next five years of World War II. She lives in Warsaw, Poland, with her family, including Mama, Papa, and her brother, Ryszard. She is strong-willed, first evident in ignoring her mother’s instructions while they are in the basement during the bombing. This continues throughout the novel as she finds ways to resist Nazi rule. In some ways, she is immature and does not fully comprehend what is happening to the Jewish people and the dangers involved with helping them; in other ways, she is mature beyond her years and understands the need for resistance against the Nazi army and the importance of the Polish people fighting together against the occupation.

Lidia is a dynamic character who changes throughout the text and contributes to the theme of Personal Growth in Extreme Hardship. At the novel’s beginning, she struggles to understand the full implications of Nazi rule in Warsaw. She plays her piano after coming out of the basement, and her father scolds her for alerting people to the fact that they are there.