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Bread symbolizes the increasingly desperate conditions Yanek faces as he’s oppressed by the Nazi regime, as well as his unyielding will to survive and retain his humanity. Prior to the Nazi invasion of Kraków, food is something that Yanek takes for granted. Even after the Nazis invade, when Yanek’s uncle Abraham saves bread for his family, Yanek explains that even though he is hungry, he can still get a deep pleasure from the smell of warm, fresh-baked bread. Yanek is learning to appreciate what he has, and the bread also is deeply tied to the comfort of family. But after Yanek is taken to the concentration camps, food grows scarcer and scarcer as life gets more and more difficult. The bread he is given is described as “small,” “hard,” “tasteless” and “lice-ridden.” While half a loaf was once considered meager, Yanek now thinks of it as a “feast.” This mirrors how the conditions in Yanek’s own life have deteriorated, as his entire experience has become similarly destitute and devoid of pleasure.
After a death march, in which Yanek has been supporting a boy about his age, he notices that his bread fell out of his pants. The boy’s bread, however, is still there, and Yanek thinks about stealing it. He doesn’t want to steal it from a living boy, however, and so he fleetingly hopes that the boy might die so that he can have his bread. But then he realizes how horrific this thought is: he has been reduced to desperation. He does not take the bread—though he knows that it fuels his life and his will to live. Thus, bread ultimately represents Yanek’s refusal to surrender what makes him human—his morality, empathy, and higher reasoning—even in the face of unthinkably traumatic circumstances.
Bread Quotes in Prisoner B-3087
The Prisoner B-3087 quotes below all refer to the symbol of Bread. 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:
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Chapter 11
Quotes
But no matter how he was standing, you always knew a Muselmann from his eyes. There wasn’t anything left there. Muselmanners had given up, and there was no life in their expression, no spark of a soul. They were zombies, worked and starved into a living death by our captors. If the man below me wasn’t dead when they came for us tomorrow, the morning roll call would kill him.
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Chapter 22
Quotes
I shook with anger and frustration. He was supposed to die! I needed him to die, so I could have his bread.
I closed my eyes. What was I thinking? I wouldn’t steal bread from a living boy, but I would wish death on him so I could take it without guilt? What were the camps doing to me? What had the Nazis turned me into?
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Chapter 27
Quotes
Farther inside Czechoslovakia, some of the villagers hung out of their windows to throw whatever they had to us—crusts of bread, half-eaten apples, raw potatoes. The Czechs couldn’t share much—there was a war on, after all, and food was hard to come by. But their kindness in the face of the Nazi soldiers and their guns warmed my heart. It was easy to think the worst of humanity when all I saw was brutality and selfishness, and these people showed me there was still good in the world, even if I rarely saw it.
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Bread Symbol Timeline in Prisoner B-3087
The timeline below shows where the symbol Bread appears in Prisoner B-3087. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...Yanek’s uncle Abraham’s bakery, which the Nazis have allowed him to keep open to bake bread for the soldiers.
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Once inside the bakery, Yanek is overwhelmed by the “beautiful smell of bread,” and his stomach growls in hunger. Abraham and Yanek’s aunt Fela greet Yanek and Oskar....
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Chapter 8
...explains, sobbing, that the Nazis picked up Yanek’s parents while they were going to get bread.
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Chapter 9
That night, Yanek returns to the barracks. As he’s eating his small piece of bread and watery soup, Moshe finds him, and they hug with relief. Moshe then explains that...
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Chapter 11
...anything. He explains that there is a man in the munitions plant who smuggles in bread and sells it. Moshe says that Yanek has saved them. That night, having acquired bread,...
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Moshe returns to his own barracks, and Yanek cradles the bread, marveling at his good fortune. A kapo comes in to make sure that everyone is...
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Chapter 18
...the work is just as bad as everywhere else. There is little food, and the bread is hard and bland. Yanek learns a trick with the soup they serve, which is...
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Chapter 20
...is dead. Another prisoner around Yanek’s age suggests that they go through his pockets for bread; they find a lice-ridden piece and share it. The boy introduces himself as Fred, and...
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...to talk about what they’ll do when they get out of the camps—like buy fresh bread and other food. They laugh together as their stomachs rumble.
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...notices that Fred has very little energy and doesn’t want to eat. He gives his bread to Yanek, but Yanek saves it for him to eat the next day. The next...
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Chapter 21
The Nazis give each prisoner half a loaf of bread for the whole trip. Yanek resolves to eat a bit at a time, to make...
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Chapter 22
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...
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...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....
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...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...
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Chapter 23
...not make the prisoners work immediately, instead sending them to the barracks with soup and bread. At night, even though Yanek shares a bed with five other men, he falls asleep...
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...rocks. At lunch, six young men are pulled away from their watery soup and hard bread. They nervously wonder what’s going to happen, only to discover that they are being taken...
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Chapter 24
...trick, but to his relief, the commandant is telling the truth. They are fed fresh bread and the thickest soup Yanek had eaten in six years. Slowly, Yanek begins to get...
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Chapter 27
...Nazis are warier of trouble. The Czech people have also left small forms of resistance: bread left out on windowsills and doorways for the prisoners to find. Some villagers hang out...
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...food before other prisoners. He sees a kapo ahead of him with four loaves of bread—more than enough for one person. Yanek wonders if he could talk the man into giving...
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...they stop, Yanek decides to be brave and tentatively approaches Moonface as he eats his bread. Moonface appears to recognize him. Yanek explains that he wants to work, but that he...
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