Coming of Age, Trauma, and Remembrance Theme Analysis

Prisoner B-3087 follows Yanek from the time he is 10 years old, living in Kraków, Poland, to the time when he is liberated at Dachau at 16 years old. In those six years, Yanek experiences a great deal of trauma: the loss of his family, the abuse of 10 different concentration camps, the constant threat of death, and the genocide of the Jewish people. Gratz illustrates how, because of this trauma, Yanek is forced to grow up and take on a much greater amount of responsibility for himself and others. In addition, Yanek feels a responsibility born of his continued survival: to make it to adulthood so that he might carry on the memory of those who have been lost. Through Yanek’s experience, Gratz ultimately argues that for people growing up in a traumatizing setting, coming of age is not only something one undergoes at a much more rapid pace than one would have otherwise—it also carries with it a mandate to remember those who could not live out the full extent of their lives. 

Gratz illustrates how, when the Nazis first invade Poland, Yanek starts to grow up and take responsibility for his own survival—and even for that of his family. While Yanek initially relies on his father, Oskar, for leadership and comfort, two years into the Nazi’s occupation of Kraków, he starts to grow doubtful of his father’s constant optimism. In 1941, at 12 years old, Yanek begins to take responsibility for his family’s well-being. One day, when Oskar is out, German soldiers and the Judenrat (Jews put in charge of other Jews in the ghetto) storm into Yanek’s building and demand they open the door. When none of the adults in the room move out of fear, Yanek lets them into the apartment to avoid punishment. Later, he also finds a pigeon coop on their roof for his family to live in, so that they can have more protection from the soldiers. In all of these instances, Yanek takes on the role of an adult, spurred by the feeling that he needs to protect his family. When Yanek turns 13, he becomes a man under Jewish law, and he, his father, and a few other men hold his bar mitzvah under cover of night. However, later, when Yanek and his family are hiding in the pigeon coop, his uncle Moshe tells him, “You're still a boy, Yanek, even if you've had your bar mitzvah,” and he argues that they should go outside so that the Nazis don’t find them hiding and kill them. Yanek replies that if they leave the coop, they will certainly be killed, but if they hide, they might be spared. His logic gradually sways all of the adults, even Moshe. Thus, Yanek proves that while turning 13 does not necessarily make one an adult, being able to take responsibility for one’s family and to protect them in the face of danger certainly fosters one’s wisdom and maturity.

Yanek matures even more in the concentration camps. There, he starts to recognize that being forced to grow up has been a traumatic experience, but also one that affords him the ability to remember those whose lives have been cut short. Yanek’s parents are taken to the concentration camps before he is, causing him to be completely responsible for himself at a young age. He thinks, “I was thirteen years old, and my parents were gone. I was all alone in the world, but I would survive on my own.” The fact that Yanek no longer has his parents to protect him is in itself a trauma that causes him to grow up much earlier than he would have otherwise. Yanek is taken to the camps soon after his parents, where he is reunited with his uncle Moshe but learns that the rest of his family is likely dead. As he experiences firsthand the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis, Yanek starts to recognize how his survival is necessary for the remembrance of the Jews. Moshe tells him, “Survive at all costs, Yanek. We cannot let these monsters tear us from the pages of the world.” After Moshe’s own death, Yanek takes this advice to heart even further. Being alone in the world comes with a certain despair, but Yanek reiterates the need to survive so that he can honor the memory of those who have died. By the time Yanek is liberated from Dachau, he is 16 years old, and the trauma and abuse that he has survived continues to illuminate the necessity of remembering those who did not make it out. When Yanek has his first meal after escaping, he thinks about the people that he watched die and the family members he has lost: “They filled my table and the tables all around me, taking the places of all the real people in the room. The dead would always be with me, I knew, even when I was surrounded by life again, even if the Americans gave me back all the objects I had lost.” Yanek now has the emotional maturity that only comes with deep, unimaginable loss, and he understands how he will always carry the burden of that loss with him in remembering the dead.

Gratz opens the book with this passage: “If I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like, […] I would have played more. Laughed more. I would have hugged my parents and told them I loved them.” This is an interesting stylistic choice, as it implies that Yanek is retelling the story from the future—in which he already knows what is going to happen to him. This structure foreshadows the maturity that he has gained and the trauma he has endured. The opening sentences also imply that the book serves not only to detail those traumas and his coming of age, but also to document the memories of the people that he has lost.