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Mahmoud: Aleppo, Syria – 2015 (3)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Refugee, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Coming of Age
Injustice and Cruelty vs. Empathy and Social Responsibility
Hope vs. Despair
Family, Displacement, and Culture
Invisibility and the Refugee Experience
Summary
Analysis
The St. Louis is a “paradise” for Josef and Ruthie, who enjoy far greater luxury on the ship than they have in the previous six years. In addition, everyone on the crew treats Josef and his family “with kindness and respect,” though Aaron hasn’t left their cabin once, and Rachel has barely left his side. Josef also notes that the other passengers—who are all Jewish—are similarly happy to be escaping the Nazis, and there is singing and dancing on the ship.
The kindness and respect that Josef and his family are shown on the ship contrasts with the injustice and cruelty that they faced in Germany. The fact that the other passengers are feeling similarly hopeful again highlights just how mistreated and dehumanized) the Jewish people were as a whole during this time period.
Themes
Josef and Ruthie befriend two girls named Renata and Evelyne Aber around Ruthie’s age. Ruthie tells them that Josef just turned 13, and is going to have his bar mitzvah soon. Renata tells them that they are traveling alone—their mother had to stay back in Germany, and their father is waiting for them in Cuba.
Gratz continues to hint at the way in which children are forced to grow up too soon. Renata and Evelyn are around six years old, per Gratz’s description, and yet they are traveling alone from Germany to Cuba in order to escape the Nazis.
Themes
Josef proposes that they play a prank, soaping up door handles along the cabins so that no one can turn them. As they watch a steward carrying a large platter try the door handle, and fumble so hard that he dropped his tray. Josef, Ruthie, Renata, and Evelyne burst into laughter. Josef realizes that he hadn’t played or laughed like this in years, and wishes he could stay on the St. Louis forever.
Again, the joy that Josef is feeling shows the responsibility that has been placed on his shoulders in the past several years as he and other Jewish people have dealt with political oppression. Now, he is getting the opportunity to be a normal child for the first time in years.
Themes
