Prisoner B-3087

by

Alan Gratz

Oskar Gruener Character Analysis

Oskar is Yanek’s father and Mina’s husband. Unlike his brother Moshe, who is extremely ware of the Nazi occupation of Kraków, Oskar remains optimistic even as the Nazis take over and subject the Jews to worse and worse conditions. Oskar ensures that Yanek receives a bar mitzvah despite the fact that Jews are not allowed to practice and could be killed if they are caught. After the ceremony, he tells Yanek that the most important thing in life is to treat others well, placing his values in contrast with the Nazis’ cruelty. Oskar is a role model for Yanek, but as the war continues on, Yanek starts to grow skeptical of his father’s assertions. The more that Yanek doubts his father, the more he starts to take on responsibility for himself. This maturation proves crucially important when Oskar and Mina are taken to the concentration camps without Yanek, after which he never sees them again.

Oskar Gruener Quotes in Prisoner B-3087

The Prisoner B-3087 quotes below are all either spoken by Oskar Gruener or refer to Oskar Gruener. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Determination and Luck Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

If I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like, I would have eaten more. I wouldn’t have complained about brushing my teeth, or taking a bath, or going to bed at eight o’clock every night. I would have played more. Laughed more. I would have hugged my parents and told them I loved them. But I was ten years old, and I had no idea of the nightmare that was to come. None of us did.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener
Related Symbols: Toothbrushes
Page Number: 2
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

My father reached up to hold my mother’s hand. “We must not lose faith, Moshe.”

“See how easy it is to keep your faith when the Nazis take it away along with everything else,” Moshe told him.

My father smiled. “Let them take everything. They cannot take who we are.”

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Uncle Moshe (speaker), Oskar Gruener (speaker), Mina Gruener
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

He was my father, and I wanted to believe him, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. It was January 1941. The Germans ruled Kraków. I was twelve years old. And for the first time in my life, I had begun to doubt my father.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“Mama,” I said, “if we don’t open up they’ll shoot us!”
My mother stared at the door. None of the other parents made a move.
I had to do something. I hurried to the door and unlocked it, and a German officer and a Judenrat police officer pushed past me down the hall.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener, Holtzman
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“Yanek, my son,” he said, looking at me solemnly, “you are a man now, with all the duties of an adult under Jewish law. You are now responsible for your own sins, but also for your own goodness. Remember what the Talmud teaches: Life is but a river. It has no beginning, no middle, no end. All we are, all we are worth, is what we do while we float upon it—how we treat our fellow man. Remember this, and a good man you will be.”

Related Characters: Oskar Gruener (speaker), Yanek Gruener
Page Number: 46-47
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“Yanek speaks with the wisdom of the prophet Isaiah,” he said softly, then quoted, “‘Come, my people…and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past.’” He cleared his throat and looked around. “Mina and I are staying too.”

One by one, the others agreed, until even Uncle Moshe sat down and was quiet.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener (speaker), Uncle Moshe, Mina Gruener
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

In the place of my pain, I felt the stirring of determination.

I would not give up. I would not turn myself in. No matter what the Nazis did to me, no matter what they took from me, I would survive.

I was thirteen years old, and my parents were gone.

I was all alone in the world, but I would survive on my own.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

That’s what the Nazis carved into my skin. B for Birkenau, 3087 for my prisoner number. That was the mark they put on me, a mark I would have for as long as I lived. B-3087. That was who I was to them. Not Yanek Gruener, son of Oskar and Mina. Not Yanek Gruener of 20 Krakusa Street, Podgórze, Kraków. Not Yanek Gruener who loved books and science and American movies.
I was Prisoner B-3087.
But I was alive.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener
Related Symbols: Yanek’s Number
Page Number: 131-132
Explanation and Analysis:

“We are alive,” I told him. “We are alive, and that is all that matters. We cannot let them tear us from the pages of the world.”

I said it as much for me as for him. I said it in memory of Uncle Moshe, and my mother and father, and my aunts and other uncles and cousins. The Nazis had put me in a gas chamber. I had thought I was dead, but I was alive. I was a new man that day, just like the bar mitzvah boy. I was a new man, and I was going to survive.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Uncle Moshe, Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

I remembered the food on the table in my old apartment in Podgórze, and all my family sitting around me. Mother and Father. Uncle Moshe and Aunt Gizela, and little cousin Zytka. Uncle Abraham and Aunt Fela. […]

I thought too of my friend Fred, and the boy who had been hanged for trying to escape, and the man who had fought back, and all the other people I had watched die. They filled my table and the tables all around me, taking the places of all the real people in the room.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Uncle Moshe, Fred, Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener, Uncle Abraham, Aunt Fela, Aunt Gizela, Zytka
Page Number: 252
Explanation and Analysis:
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Oskar Gruener Quotes in Prisoner B-3087

The Prisoner B-3087 quotes below are all either spoken by Oskar Gruener or refer to Oskar Gruener. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Determination and Luck Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

If I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like, I would have eaten more. I wouldn’t have complained about brushing my teeth, or taking a bath, or going to bed at eight o’clock every night. I would have played more. Laughed more. I would have hugged my parents and told them I loved them. But I was ten years old, and I had no idea of the nightmare that was to come. None of us did.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener
Related Symbols: Toothbrushes
Page Number: 2
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

My father reached up to hold my mother’s hand. “We must not lose faith, Moshe.”

“See how easy it is to keep your faith when the Nazis take it away along with everything else,” Moshe told him.

My father smiled. “Let them take everything. They cannot take who we are.”

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Uncle Moshe (speaker), Oskar Gruener (speaker), Mina Gruener
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

He was my father, and I wanted to believe him, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. It was January 1941. The Germans ruled Kraków. I was twelve years old. And for the first time in my life, I had begun to doubt my father.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“Mama,” I said, “if we don’t open up they’ll shoot us!”
My mother stared at the door. None of the other parents made a move.
I had to do something. I hurried to the door and unlocked it, and a German officer and a Judenrat police officer pushed past me down the hall.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener, Holtzman
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“Yanek, my son,” he said, looking at me solemnly, “you are a man now, with all the duties of an adult under Jewish law. You are now responsible for your own sins, but also for your own goodness. Remember what the Talmud teaches: Life is but a river. It has no beginning, no middle, no end. All we are, all we are worth, is what we do while we float upon it—how we treat our fellow man. Remember this, and a good man you will be.”

Related Characters: Oskar Gruener (speaker), Yanek Gruener
Page Number: 46-47
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“Yanek speaks with the wisdom of the prophet Isaiah,” he said softly, then quoted, “‘Come, my people…and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past.’” He cleared his throat and looked around. “Mina and I are staying too.”

One by one, the others agreed, until even Uncle Moshe sat down and was quiet.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener (speaker), Uncle Moshe, Mina Gruener
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

In the place of my pain, I felt the stirring of determination.

I would not give up. I would not turn myself in. No matter what the Nazis did to me, no matter what they took from me, I would survive.

I was thirteen years old, and my parents were gone.

I was all alone in the world, but I would survive on my own.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

That’s what the Nazis carved into my skin. B for Birkenau, 3087 for my prisoner number. That was the mark they put on me, a mark I would have for as long as I lived. B-3087. That was who I was to them. Not Yanek Gruener, son of Oskar and Mina. Not Yanek Gruener of 20 Krakusa Street, Podgórze, Kraków. Not Yanek Gruener who loved books and science and American movies.
I was Prisoner B-3087.
But I was alive.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener
Related Symbols: Yanek’s Number
Page Number: 131-132
Explanation and Analysis:

“We are alive,” I told him. “We are alive, and that is all that matters. We cannot let them tear us from the pages of the world.”

I said it as much for me as for him. I said it in memory of Uncle Moshe, and my mother and father, and my aunts and other uncles and cousins. The Nazis had put me in a gas chamber. I had thought I was dead, but I was alive. I was a new man that day, just like the bar mitzvah boy. I was a new man, and I was going to survive.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Uncle Moshe, Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

I remembered the food on the table in my old apartment in Podgórze, and all my family sitting around me. Mother and Father. Uncle Moshe and Aunt Gizela, and little cousin Zytka. Uncle Abraham and Aunt Fela. […]

I thought too of my friend Fred, and the boy who had been hanged for trying to escape, and the man who had fought back, and all the other people I had watched die. They filled my table and the tables all around me, taking the places of all the real people in the room.

Related Characters: Yanek Gruener (speaker), Uncle Moshe, Fred, Oskar Gruener, Mina Gruener, Uncle Abraham, Aunt Fela, Aunt Gizela, Zytka
Page Number: 252
Explanation and Analysis: