Prisoner B-3087: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

Each morning, Amon Goeth sits on the balcony of his home overlooking the camp and shoots Jews in the parade grounds while listening to music on his record player. Yanek explains that if someone rushed through trying not to be shot, Goeth would shoot at the person on purpose. The best way not to be shot is to have a job somewhere else. Yanek works at the tailor shop, and Uncle Moshe works in a furrier shop. There is always a danger of being killed at roll call, but Yanek learns from Moshe how to be anonymous and avoid this fate.

When the tailor shop closes down, Moshe trades his daily rations to a kapo (a prisoner put in charge of other prisoners) to get Yanek assigned to a new job outside the camp. Yanek is brought back to the Kraków ghetto, which has been completely liquidated.  The Nazis tell Yanek and the other prisoners that the ghetto must be cleaned to eradicate any Jewish contamination. They are to search for anything of value, and if they steal anything for themselves, they will be killed.

Yanek is overcome by his memories as he walks through the neighborhood, particularly because he is assigned to clean out the apartment building where he had lived. He remembers his parents and friends, missing them deeply. As he climbs the stairs, he starts to smell something putrid from Mr. Tatarka’s flat. When he opens the door, he finds Mr. Tatarka dead in a pool of his own blood. Yanek retches and sobs, running up to the roof to get a breath of fresh air.

When Yanek is up in the pigeon coop, he notices Oskar’s coat in the corner. He puts the coat on to try to remember the smell of his father, and he feels a lump in one of the sleeves. Yanek remembers with excitement that there is money sewn into the linings. Yanek rips the seams open and finds 1,000 zloty. He then finds his own old coat and finds another 1,000 zloty. Using an old needle and thread, and his skills from the tailor shop, Yanek sews the money into the lining of his own prison uniform, disguising it well.

Yanek continues to work the rest of the day, sorting through clothes and household items. He inspects the clothes to see if anyone else had the same idea as his mother, and he finds a pair of diamond earrings, which he hooks inside his jacket under his arms. The Nazis don’t check the prisoners upon their return—likely because two years of imprisonment and raids had bled the ghetto of anything worth owning. When Yanek returns, he tells Moshe to meet him in his barracks at dinner. And when he asks the score, Moshe replies, “Goeth nineteen, Jews nil.”