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Chapter 21
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
Nine or 10 days into the march, Yanek notices another boy about his age who looks like he is about to collapse. He falls farther and farther toward the back of the line. Yanek keeps looking back at the boy, who reminds him of Fred. Yanek slows down and tells the boy that he has to walk faster. The boy stumbles and falls into Yanek, and Yanek takes some of his weight, though he can barely keep himself upright.
Yanek’s gesture to the boy indicates that even in the face of the Nazis’ cruelty, and even as the prisoners are placed in the most destitute of conditions, Yanek can subtly resist by extending kindness and humanity to others.
Themes
Yanek thinks back to Moshe’s warning, wondering why he is wasting his energy saving another boy when he should be worried about saving himself. But Yanek acknowledges that the boy has a face and a name—Yanek thinks, “He could have been me.” Yanek appeals to other marchers, asking for help to carry the boy, but no one does. Yanek thinks that it doesn’t have to be every man for himself, that if they all helped one another, they could be stronger and more of them could survive.
Yanek understands Moshe’s warning, knowing that he would be better off if he simply let the boy fend for himself. Yet he recognizes that if they all tried to support one another, they could save one another’s lives and resist the Nazis together. Additionally, Yanek’s connection to the boy is tied to identity—knowing that he could easily end up as just another anonymous corpse to the other prisoners, he does for the boy what he would want others to do for him.
Themes
Yanek walks for hours with the boy leaning on him. Yanek is desperate for bread—but to eat it, he would have to let the boy go. He thinks that he might not make it, and if he fell, he would never be able to get the boy up again. But just when Yanek thinks that he can’t take another step, another older man takes part of the boy’s weight. Yanek cries, unable to express his gratitude.
Yanek’s efforts show how, just as he stepped up for the boy’s bar mitzvah in Birkenau, stepping up here prompts others to also act in solidarity with one another. Gratz demonstrates that Yanek’s thoughts are right: the more they work together, they more they are able to survive.
Themes
When they finally stop for the night, Yanek sets the boy down and the old man disappears quickly. Yanek reaches for his bread tucked into his pants, only to discover that it fell out while they were walking. He sobs, unsure of how he will survive without it—he's furious at the boy. Yanek thinks that if not for the boy, he would not have wasted all his energy and lost his food. Then Yanek sees a lump in the boy’s pocket: the boy’s bread. Yanek reaches for it, but he stops himself, unable to steal from the boy. He thinks that the boy will probably die by morning, and then he can take the bread.
Gratz continues to tie Yanek’s bread to his wellbeing—not only physically, but emotionally. Without the prospect of sustenance, Yanek is desperate and isn’t sure how he will continue. This is another example of how determination isn’t the only key to success. Yanek tried to make sure he could ration the bread to keep him sustained, but an unlucky break nearly results in his death.
Themes
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The next morning, Yanek discovers that the boy is still alive, and he looks much better than the day before. Yanek shakes with anger, wishing that the boy had died. Then Yanek is aghast at his own thoughts, wondering, “What had the Nazis turned me into?” Yanek realizes that he would rather steal than wish someone dead, and he reaches for the boy’s bread. The boy wakes, and Yanek tells him that he was just checking that he was alive. The boy pushes Yanek away before Yanek can explain that he is the one who helped him the day before. Yanek then picks himself up: even though he is starving, he is not a Muselmann yet.
Yanek’s inner monologue illuminates how easy it is to lose one’s values while subject to the Nazis’ cruelty. In giving himself two options—steal from a boy or wish him dead so that he can take his bread guilt-free—Yanek sees that he has lost some of the morality and humanity that once grounded him. But even in spite of this desperation, starvation, and the feeling that he is losing his values, Yanek keeps his determination in the hopes that one day he can regain them.
Themes
