Identity vs. Anonymity Theme Analysis

Central to Prisoner B-3087 is the loss of identity—it is even inherent in the title. Yanek’s journey through concentration camps strips him of all indications of identity and relegates him to a number. While this number is forced onto him by the Nazis, he must also adopt anonymity in order to avoid standing out and risking death. Yet this lack of identity comes at a cost: as Yanek and his fellow prisoners loses all individuality, all desires, and all family, they lose everything that makes life valuable and worthwhile. Thus, Gratz illustrates how anonymity can be just as damaging as other, more overt forms of abuse: without an identity or anything to care about, life quickly becomes meaningless. 

Gratz sets up Yanek’s individuality in the early chapters, illustrating the things that make him unique as a means of foreshadowing what he will soon lose. Yanek loves movies—particularly American Westerns—and he uses a slide projector to tell stories with pictures or shadow puppets. He’s particularly upset, then, when the movie theaters become closed to Jews. The closures remove the things that Yanek particularly cares about, and this starts to strip him of his identity. These closures occur in school as well: Yanek explains that he loves books and science, and so unlike other children, he is disappointed when he learns that the schools are now closed to Jews. Yanek describes himself, even at 10 years old, as “depressed” after discovering the news. His desires and his ability to pursue his passions are deeply tied to his ability to find meaning in life, and Gratz here sets up the relationship between the loss of these parts of Yanek’s identity and his inability to find meaning. When Yanek tells his parents about school being cancelled and Moshe grows more and more alarmed about restrictions on the Jews, Oskar provides them with this assurance: “Let them take everything. They cannot take who we are.” This statement, while optimistic, only highlights the later tragedy of Yanek’s loss of identity. To Yanek’s father, identity feels like the last stronghold in one’s life, reinforcing the idea that when identity is lost, it almost amounts to a physical loss of life.

Yanek starts to feel his identity taken away from him when he arrives at Plaszów concentration camp, illustrating how the removal of identity is just another aspect of the Nazis’ torture as they try to dehumanize their prisoners. Yanek’s clothing is the first aspect of the removal of his identity: he is dressed in a grey striped prison uniform, his other clothing taken away. From this point on, he’s no longer an individual—instead, he has simply been reduced to a category: prisoner. Likewise, he is given a Star of David to denote that he is a Jew. But even though this is a distinct part of Yanek’s identity, it is not the whole of his identity. Later, Yanek’s head is shaved, removing another layer of individuality. The Nazis’ tactics here all serve to take away Yanek’s individuality, so that he becomes nothing but a type to his captors. When Moshe is reunited with Yanek in Plaszów, Moshe emphasizes the need to play into anonymity. He warns, “From now on, you have no name, no personality, no family, no friends. Do you understand? Nothing to identify you, nothing to care about. Not if you want to survive. You must be anonymous to these monsters.” Moshe recognizes that anonymity is necessary to survival, but that this potential for survival comes at the cost of losing everything that makes a person who they are. When Yanek arrives in Birkenau, he is given a tattooed number in place of a name: B-3087. He thinks, “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.” Again, Yanek emphasizes that everything that made him who he is has been taken away, symbolized by this impersonal identification number.

It is only when the Americans liberate Dachau that Yanek’s identity is restored to him. Alongside his freedom, this allows Yanek to regain a sense of meaning in life as he reconnects with family and former passions. When the Americans arrive in Dachau, one rushes over to Yanek to help him. The first thing the soldier asks Yanek is his name. When Yanek affirms his name, the soldier replies, “Everything's going to be all right now, Yanek.” Yanek, in turn, thinks, “for the first time in six years, I believed he was right.” This acknowledgement of an identity outside of Yanek’s prisoner number symbolizes that his individuality and ability to have a meaningful future have been restored to him. This idea is further reinforced when Yanek returns to society. He reunites with a cousin, Youzek, who provides him once more with the comfort of having a family—of feeling that someone knows him and loves him. Yanek also thinks of getting a job as a projectionist in a nearby movie theater before deciding to move to America, a fantasy of his prior to the war. Yanek acknowledges to himself that “life must go on,” and now that he is regaining aspects of his identity, he is able to pursue that meaning once more.