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Chapter 4
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
At the start of 1942, the British and the French are fighting the Germans, but mostly on the western border. Meanwhile, the Nazis continue to take Jews away to work in the factories, and many of them do not come back. Yanek spends his time kicking a ball in the hallway outside the apartment, until another woman in the building, Mrs. Immerglick, yells at him to stop.
Mrs. Immerglick’s annoyed reaction to Yanek is understandable given the stress of the circumstances. But it also hints at how the Nazis’ dehumanization of Jewish people leads them to regard one another with less humility, as separate individuals at odds with one another rather than a unified group.
Themes
Suddenly, Yanek hears doors smashing and screaming in the building. Everyone who lives in his apartment gathers in the sitting room, and someone starts to pound on the door, telling them to open up or they’ll break it down. Oskar is out standing in line for vegetable rations, and Mina doesn’t know what to do. Yanek worries that the Nazis will shoot them if they don’t open the door, and so he takes it upon himself to unlock it.
This is another benchmark in Yanek’s growth and coming of age story. With his father out of the house and danger at the door, Yanek takes it upon himself to make the adult decision and let the Nazis into the apartment in order to protect the people in it, astutely recognizing that refusing to do so could cause more harm than good.
Themes
A Nazi soldier and a Judenrat (a Jewish police officer whom the Nazis put in charge of the ghetto) named Holtzman barge into the flat, demanding their valuables. The families give what little they have, and the Nazi soldier pulls off Mina’s necklace and wedding ring. The men search the flat for more valuables. Before they leave, they tell Yanek and the others that next time they should open the door more quickly, or they’ll send them “to the east.”
This is the first real depiction of how the Nazis target Jewish people with violence and cruelty for their own benefit. They are even able to get Jewish people like the Judenrat to turn on the one another, motivated by fear of being targeted themselves.
Themes
After the soldiers leave, Yanek watches out the window as the Immerglick family is taken into the military trucks. Yanek realizes that they were spared and that the Immerglicks were taken simply on the whim of the Nazis. The families in Yanek’s flat discover that they have nothing to eat: their rations had been taken. Yanek slips into the hall for some privacy, and Yanek sees another one of their neighbors, Mr. Tatarka, going through the Immerglicks’ things.
Here, Yanek begins to reckon with the idea that sometimes one’s survival is not based only on an active will to persevere, but also on sheer luck. The Nazis could just have easily taken Yanek’s family to the camps, and yet the Immerglicks were taken instead. Meanwhile, Mr. Tatarka pilfering the Immerglicks’ belongings is another example of how the Nazis’ dehumanization of Jews can lead to Jewish people losing touch with their own humanity and sense of community with others.
Themes
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Yanek looks through the building: 12 flats in the building are empty, meaning 48 families had been taken. When Yanek reaches the top floor, he notices that there is another staircase going up, leading to a steel door and a pigeon coop behind it. Yanek descends once more and finds Oskar has returned, and Yanek is grateful that he has not been taken. Yanek shows his parents the pigeon coop and explains that they could clean it up and live in the coop.
Here, Yanek starts to observe the sheer scale of the Nazis’ cruelty as they raid, abuse, and deport families en masse with no reservations. In this moment of crisis, Yanek also continues to prove his maturity, as he comes up with an ingenious solution that will help protect his family from the Nazis.
Themes
Yanek and his parents bring up furniture from their apartment to the pigeon coop. Mina sews all their remaining money and valuables into the linings of their coats. Yanek and Oskar also find steel bars to put on the door to the coop, assuring Mina that no one would ever be able to break in again.
Even with his father home, Yanek displays his maturity as he tries to comfort his mother. He eases her worries both with his words and with a concrete plan to keep the Nazis at bay, illustrating a role reversal between them.
Themes
