Toothbrushes Symbol Analysis

Toothbrushes symbolize Yanek’s sense of humanity. In the camps, Yanek and the other prisoners do not have toothbrushes or toothpaste. Yanek recognizes that he does not truly need this to survive, but that toothbrushes are representative of a basic level of decency that the Jews are not shown. When he washes himself in the morning, he rubs his teeth with his wet fingers, thinking that “it felt important to remember what it was like to be human.” He thinks as he washes one day that the simplest possessions, like toothbrushes, “seem[] like treasures now.” Yanek desperately wants to keep hold on the feeling of what it was like to be treated well, in the hopes that he can one day regain that decency. At the end of the novel, when the Americans liberate Yanek and the others from Dachau, he is relocated to Munich and is given a bunk with pillows and sheets, along with a cup, a washcloth, and a toothbrush. Yanek is astounded and holds it “reverently.” He thinks, “the Americans [are] giving me my life back.” Through all of the cruelty and inhumanity, the toothbrush serves as a small tool by which he can regain some of the humanity of which he had been deprived.