Determination and Luck Theme Analysis

Prisoner B-3087 is a historical novel based on the true story of Jack Gruener, who is born Yanek Gruener. Yanek is a Jewish boy from Poland who, against all odds, survives the Kraków ghetto and 10 different concentration camps during the Holocaust between 1939 and 1945. This is a remarkable feat, as the Nazis’ attempt to eliminate the Jewish people resulted in the deaths of 90 percent of Poland’s Jewish population and six million Jews across Europe. Despite the fact that many prisoners share Yanek’s perseverance in the camps in the face or horrific treatment, this alone is not enough to ensure survival—sheer luck also frequently helps Yanek to endure the cruelty of the camp. Thus, in Alan Gratz’s writing of Yanek’s story, he argues that two key factors enable people to survive trying situations: a combination of intense determination and extraordinary luck.

The overwhelming brutality in the concentration camps, particularly the ease with which the Nazis torture and murder the prisoners, emphasizes the fact that sometimes the prisoners’ deaths are a result of the cruelest kind of bad luck. When Yanek arrives in his first concentration camp, Plaszów, in 1942, he receives an alarming introduction to the commandant of the camp, Amon Goeth. During Yanek’s first roll call, for no reason at all, Goeth sets his two dogs on the prisoner standing directly beside Yanek. Another man is shot during the same roll call for not doffing his cap correctly. When Yanek returns from roll call, he feels as though he had “survived a battle.” The Nazis are so uncaring about who lives or dies that anyone could be murdered at any time—only through sheer luck are people able to escape each day. This fact becomes particularly salient for Yanek when his uncle Moshe, who is also at Plaszów and helps him during his time in the camp, is killed by Goeth. Moshe had been made a leader of a group breaking rocks in the camp, and when Goeth asked Moshe how much work had been done, Goeth “didn’t like his answer.” Even though Moshe had been just as determined to survive as Yanek, a simple mischance of being made the group leader led to his death.

Throughout his time at the camps, Yanek also receives several particularly lucky breaks which ensure his survival. When Yanek is at the Plaszów concentration camp, he is sent back to clean the Krakow ghetto, where his family used to live. He is then able to get back into his old apartment and find money that his mother, Mina, had sewn into his family’s coats, as well as a pair of earrings. Through this lucky chance, he is able buy more bread for himself back at the camp, which is key to maintaining his strength and aiding his survival. After Yanek arrives at Birkenau in 1944, Yanek explains that he is “lucky to get a pair of wooden shoes that fit.” Without this luck, he would not have been able to survive two subsequent death marches, as he describes how “Those without shoes were the first to fall behind and die.” Again, the chance of getting shoes that fit enables Yanek to survive where others could not—highlighting how his survival frequently comes down to luck.

Yanek recognizes the tragedy in the reality that so much of one’s survival in the camps comes down to luck, and this fills him with a deep sense of despair. But as his luck mounts, he understands that rather than resigning himself to death, he should maintain the determination and the hope to survive and make his efforts worthwhile. Yanek’s despair peaks after surviving the ghetto and three concentration camps, only to be placed in the gas chambers at Birkenau. Yanek thinks, “There was no rhyme or reason to whether we lived or died […] You could play the game perfectly and still lose, so why bother playing at all?” However, when Yanek and the other prisoners are in the showers, water comes out instead of deadly gas. Yanek laughs and cries, and for the first time thinks what will become the mantra for the rest of his journey: “I was alive.” Recognizing his fortune in living fuels Yanek’s determination to continue to survive—emphasizing the combination of luck and determination that allowed him to make it through the camps. Yanek also recognizes how a lack of determination can be just as much of a death sentence as being unlucky. He learns to identify “Muselmanners”—what the prisoners call people who have “no life in their expression,” and have been “starved into a living death by [their] captors.” When Yanek sees a Muselmann, he explains that he knows that they are soon to die: lacking the will to do anything essentially functions as a death sentence. Yanek thus recognizes that maintaining the will to live is crucial, and he continues to repeat, “I was alive,” to motivate himself to survive. With this determination, Yanek is able to survive 10 different concentration camps and two death marches. When the Americans arrive to liberate Dachau in 1945, Yanek falls to his knees and weeps. Although Yanek has been lucky, it is also his perseverance and hope that enable him to build a new life after liberation.

Gratz resists the assumption that determination is all one needs to survive a life-or-death situation—to do so would be to discount all of those who shared the urgent will to live and yet by randomness and sheer bad luck were murdered by the Nazis while others were not. Still, Gratz ultimately suggests that while the prisoners may not have had complete control of their fate, maintaining the will to live remains indispensable. Determination may not guarantee success, but without it, it would have been impossible for Yanek to survive.