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Chapter 28
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
When Yanek arrives at Dachau, he discovers that typhus is raging through the camp. Prisoners are dying by the hundreds, and the Nazis do nothing to treat them. Yanek thinks that it is a miracle that he does not get sick. The one reprieve is that the prisoners do not have to work, and some days they don’t even have roll call. The war is coming to an end; the Germans are only moving the prisoners around to avoid the Allies.
Again, Yanek’s survival at Dachau is due mostly to luck: he could just as easily have succumbed to typhus like so many of the other prisoners, despite his consistent determination to live. Yanek himself acknowledges his luck in not getting sick by describing it as a “miracle,” grateful that he is able to survive after enduring so much hardship already.
Themes
One night in early spring, Yanek wakes to the sounds of deafeningly loud explosions close by. The planes roar for hours, and Yanek hears bullets firing. He hopes that he can survive a little longer. Then, close to dawn, the shooting and explosions stop, and Yanek goes back to sleep. In the morning, however, the prisoners discover that there are no kapos or guards around—the Nazis fled in the night.
It is here that Yanek’s personal war finally ends. He and the other surviving prisoners were able to keep their determination alive, as Gratz emphasizes again here, but the previous chapters have also illustrated that an immense amount of luck was involved in Yanek’s survival—many others did not live simply because they weren’t as lucky.
Themes
Yanek and the other prisoners look around the yard, not knowing what to do. Yanek has no home or family to go back to, and no way to get there. He wonders who would be kind to him, a Jew, considering that no one ever stood up for him before he was interned. Yanek realizes that although he and the other prisoners are free, they are still powerless.
Even in freedom, Yanek’s primary concern is the anti-Semitism that has been rampant not only in Germany and by the Nazis, but what he has seen from others. The Nazi regime’s cruelty has radiated outward to influence ordinary civilians, and so the Jewish prisoners are still unsafe regardless of their newfound freedom.
Themes
Then, someone spots soldiers, and Yanek steels himself to be killed by the Germans—their last act to exterminate the Jews. But the soldiers are wearing green, not gray and brown, and the tank has an American flag on it. Yanek falls to his knees and weeps in shock and gratitude that he had actually survived. An American soldier hurries over to him and asks in German what his name is. Yanek replies that his name is Yanek. The American soldier address him by name and assures him that he’s going to be okay.
Yanek finally feels a wave of relief wash over him in recognizing that all of his efforts over the years have been worth it. The American soldier asking Yanek his name provides a particularly moving sense of closure to this chapter of Yanek’s life. No longer is he reduced a number, which has symbolized a loss of identity and individuality. Now, he can be Yanek Gruener once more and can regain a meaningful life along with this identity.
Themes
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