The Cage

The Cage is the 1986 memoir of Ruth Minsky Sender, nee Riva Minska, detailing her family’s struggle to survive the Holocaust. Born in Lodz, Poland, Riva inhabits a close-knit community that integrates both Jews and non-Jews through shared traditions and intergenerational spaces. When Hitler’s Nazis invade Poland, thirteen-year-old Riva watches this peace crumble, as non-Jewish friends accept her family’s persecution and as Jews themselves adopt positions of power that hurt others in the community.

After Riva’s mother is taken, and her youngest brother, Laibele, contracts tuberculosis, Riva becomes a de facto mother for all three of her younger brothers, Motele, Moishele, and Laibele. With her mother’s courageous example, wise words, and loving spirit to inspire her, Riva tries to give hope to others as often as she can, a favor that those friends return for her when her own hope fails. As life in the Lodz ghetto grows tougher, Riva’s gall stones suffer, and her younger brothers work courageously to find antidotes for her illness. Just as neighbors like Moishe and Yulek care for and inspire Riva and her siblings, so, too, do the Minskas watch out for their friends and neighbors, risking their lives to protect others from the secret police.