AUNTIE VERA UNLOCKED THE DOOR TO HER APARTMENT. A CUPBOARD DOOR HUNG OPEN, AND SEVERAL GLASSES LAY SHATTERED ON THE FLOOR; BOOKS HAD BEEN THROWN FROM their shelves. Whitish-gray dust frosted every surface. Her apartment looked much like ours, but worse because Auntie’s home was stuffed with furniture, animal figurines, a large birdcage, and lots and lots of books. Her belongings looked like they’d been shaken in a jar and thrown out like dice.

“Oh, dear.” She sighed, pushing the door open fully and taking a step inside. Alik, Misha, and I peered around her at the mess.

“Look,” I said, pointing up and into the corner of her front room. The darkening sky shone through a hole between her ceiling and the floor of the one above it. If Auntie could see the sky, much of the ceiling of the family’s apartment above hers had to be gone, because they were the top floor. “The roof!” I exclaimed as I remembered. “We’re supposed to check for fires.” All the boys between ten and fourteen who lived in our building were required to report to the roof after any hostile activity. I’d almost forgotten because the bombs had never been this close before. “Auntie, why don’t you wait in our apartment?”

She nodded. “I hope it doesn’t rain,” she said with one last upward glance, making an effort to smile as she followed us out into the hall and closed the door behind us. “Go, boys. Hurry, but be careful.”

When we arrived, a half dozen or so people were already there, carrying long, oversize pliers in their hands, the ones with the four-foot-long handles that allow you to pick up incendiary bombs. The sole purpose of incendiaries was to start fires. They were about the size and shape of my arm from wrist to elbow. The Germans dropped thousands of them on their city raids along with their regular bombs. Even if they missed their primary targets, they could still be assured that they left countless fires behind them.

Flames were already festering on the roof of the building across the street. I stared, giving a silent thanks that it had missed our apartment house, feeling guilty for such a selfish thought. When I turned away, I was more fiercely determined than ever to protect our homes, our city, my friends, and their families.

We boys had two jobs: to spot the incendiaries for those with pliers and to provide buckets of sand and water for them to put the bombs into. The roof of our building was flat, which made many easy to find. Still, there were plenty of places the small incendiaries could be overlooked between the chimney pots and air shafts that dotted the roof.

I saw Olga; a metal helmet hung loosely over her dark braids. “Olga, what do you want us to do?” I called.

“Go over there.” She pointed to the northwest corner of our building. “Make sure the sand and water buckets are full. Then start at the center of the roof and look for incendiaries.” I was relieved to have Olga as our leader at a time like this.

We ran quickly but found that two boys who lived on the ground floor had already filled every available bucket and pail. “Let’s find the hole in the roof over Auntie’s before we look for incendiaries,” I said. “We don’t want anyone to fall through.” Three bare bulbs on poles lit just three corners of the large apartment building, leaving many areas obscured.

“Ahhh!” someone near us screamed. “There’s one!”

“Can you reach it?” another called. “Is it burning?”

“Not yet.” There was a flurry of activity off to our left, the clank of metal on metal as the long pliers were used to grab the bomb and carry it with great caution to a nearby bucket of sand. I’d been told that sometimes just the pressure of the pliers on an incendiary could make it burst into flame. How brave those people were; the very thought of it made me shiver with fear.

The light changed as the fire in the building across the street grew. It provided the extra light I needed to get my bearings and find the damage we were looking for. There it was, not far from the edge of the roof: a savage-looking, bed-size hole. No wonder Auntie could now see the sky from her doorway.

As I looked around for Olga to tell her about it, an incredible explosion made us all jump. To the south and the east, flames poured up into the sky, higher and brighter than any I’d ever seen. I stared at the terrifying sight.

“Is it the Kirov?” Alik asked, looking at me in fear. I shook my head, knowing that whatever was in flames was near my mother’s factory, but it wasn’t the Kirov. I knew its position well.

“Oh,” I gasped as another boom thundered over us and giant tongues of flame shot into the sky, surrounded by billows of black smoke. “It’s the Badayev! The food warehouses are on fire!”

“Oh, no,” Alik whispered. The Badayev warehouses held almost all of Leningrad’s food supplies — flour, sugar, meat, lard. If they burned, we would starve.

“Come on!” I cried, running toward the door that led to the stairwell. “We have to help!”