armyangel19862005

I may be confusing two books here, so bear with me. I remember reading a book in middle school (7-9 years ago) about a little boy who ran away from Nazi Germany (maybe he was Polish?), I think. He ends up getting separated from his dad and living on the streets, sometimes by himself and sometimes with other run away teens. During the border crossing the boy found a pocket knife issued to soldiers and kept it for himself.

He was very young, I remember he was arrested once for shoplifting and was small enough to slide through the bars of the window. Some of the teens he used to run around with were a boy and girl couple, and the girl got pregnant and was put in a teen home for girls until she gave birth and her baby was taken away, at which point she escaped. Another part of the story that stands out is how the other kids taught him that if you dug a whole in a giant coal pile, down to where the embers were still hot, you could stick potatoes and stuff in there to cook them.