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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Prisoner B-3087, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Determination and Luck
Anti-Semitism and Cruelty vs. Humanity
Connection vs. Isolation
Coming of Age, Trauma, and Remembrance
Identity vs. Anonymity
Summary
Analysis
Yanek Gruener opens the novel by explaining that if he had known what the next six years of his life would entail, he would have eaten more and not complained about brushing his teeth or taking a bath; he would have laughed and played more and told his parents that he loved them more often. But at the time, at 10 years old, he had no idea what was to come.
In late September 1939, Yanek and his family live in Kraków, Poland. One evening, Yanek’s extended family gathers in his parents’ home for dinner. As they eat, they worriedly discuss how Hitler wants to make the Jews “disappear from Europe.” Germany has already annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia and recently invaded Poland. Yanek’s father, Oskar, tries to calm his brother Moshe, explaining that Britain and France already declared war on Germany and predicting that the war won’t last six months.
Yanek’s family dinner provides some background for the conflict of World War II, illustrating how Hitler and Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitism is a primary motivation for the war to come. The dinner also indicates the connection and closeness between Yanek and his extended family—relationships that will likely disappear from Yanek’s life as the Nazi regime overtakes Poland.
Themes
Yanek’s mother, Mina, dismisses the political talk and asks Yanek to “put on a show”—he’s built his own slide projector so that he can show pictures on the wall or do shadow puppet shows. Yanek loves movies—particularly American Westerns. He enjoys putting on shows for his family, who cheer and laugh as he performs. He wonders if, one day, he can go to America to work on movies.
Here, Gratz introduces parts of Yanek’s identity, illustrating the things that are most important to him, even at 10 years old. Yanek’s ability to show his personality and his aspiration to make movies in the future will contrast with his identity if he’s sent to the concentration camps, where he’ll be forced to make himself anonymous and to relinquish all of the things that make him an individual.
Themes
As Yanek performs, the radio abruptly changes to announce that the German Army has reached Kraków. The adults in the room are shocked. Suddenly, there is a big boom outside the window: the Germans have arrived. Yanek again reiterates that if he had known then what he knows now, he would have run with his family without stopping to take anything with him. But instead, they listen to the radio and watch as the Germans arrive.
Again, Gratz uses this future perspective to illustrate how much trauma Yanek is about to experience, the identity he is about to be stripped of, and the family he is about to lose. But the novel thus also serves as a way of preserving the memories of Yanek’s (and the real Jack Gruener’s) family.
Themes
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