Trauma and Coming of Age Theme Analysis

Refugee centers on the stories of three children forced to flee from their homes: Josef, a 12-year-old Jewish boy fleeing Germany during World War II; Isabel, an 11-year-old Cuban girl attempting to cross the ocean to Miami in 1994; and Mahmoud, a 13-year-old Syrian boy caught in civil war in 2015. Because Gratz uses three children as the lenses through which readers experience the story, the book also tracks the coming of age of his three protagonists. Yet the circumstances of these children are atypical as they escape oppressive and dangerous countries; their development is deeply altered by their traumatic journeys. In focusing on the difficult choices and the extra responsibilities that these children have to bear, Gratz illustrates how the trauma and hardships of being a refugee force children to become adults far sooner than they should have to.

At the book’s outset, Josef exhibits a deep desire to grow up. But over the course of the novel, Josef is forced to take on far more responsibility for his parents and sister, particularly as his father, Aaron, sinks deeper into depression and anxiety following his experience at a concentration camp. Gratz demonstrates how Josef takes on the adult role in his family, assuming the burden that one would normally expect parents to take on. At the beginning of the book, Josef is eager not to be treated as a child anymore. But Josef quickly realizes the responsibility that comes with being an adult. After Aaron returns from the Dachau concentration camp on the condition that he must leave the country, Josef’s family flees to Cuba on the MS St. Louis. Josef’s father is deeply disturbed by what he saw at the concentration camp and holes himself up in their cabin. Josef consequently helps supervise his younger sister, Ruthie, on the boat and makes sure that she doesn’t interact with the Nazi officials on board, taking over some of the responsibilities that his father should be shouldering as a parent. When a medical inspection is set to take place on the ship, Aaron starts to have a panic attack as this prospect triggers memories from Dachau. Josef then slaps his father to get him to calm down, causing Josef to note how “in the past six months, Josef and his father had traded places.” The hardships that Josef and his family have faced have led him to have to take on the role of an adult, even punishing his father like a child when he is acting out. Josef faces his hardest decision near the end of the novel, after the St. Louis has been sent back to Europe. When Josef, Ruthie, and their mother, Rachel, are caught by a Nazi officer, the officer forces Josef’s mother to choose which of her children will go free. Instead, Josef makes the decision for her, insisting that Ruthie go free and dooming himself to the concentration camps and ultimately death. When Ruthie recounts this incident as an adult, she says of him, “My brother, just a boy, becoming a man.” Josef takes the responsibility of an adult onto himself, and even sacrifices his own life in order to save that of his sister. This is a decision no 13-year-old should have to make, and yet his experience as a refugee demands it. 

Isabel is faced with similar burdens, making tough decisions in order to care for her family and keep them together. Her experiences prove how she, too, has been forced to grow into adulthood by the trauma of her journey. Early in Isabel’s story, riots break out in Havana due to the ongoing food shortages and president Fidel Castro’s oppressive regime. Isabel goes out to search for her father and grandfather to make sure that they are not arrested. She even runs in front of a police officer about to hit her father, Geraldo, in order to protect him. It is because of her that her father is not arrested, showing how just like Josef, she is forced to take on the role of parent and protector. Isabel then recognizes that her father is in danger of being arrested for criticizing Castro. She decides to organize for her family (including her pregnant mother, Teresa) and her neighbors, the Castillos, to all flee the country by boat and take a harrowing journey from Havana to Miami. In making these plans, Isabel shows the maturity and responsibility of someone much older, but her dire situation gives her little choice.

As Mahmoud and his family flee war-torn Syria, he, too, must bear the burden of tough choices and be responsible for his family’s safety. Even before Mahmoud’s family is forced to flee, Mahmoud takes on a protective role over his younger brother, Waleed. Mahmoud finds a new route for them to go home from school every day, so that they can avoid running into the Syrian Army or the rebels, and find shelter from bombs if necessary. Mahmoud is thrust even further into an adult role when he and his family take a boat from Turkey to Greece, but a storm capsizes their boat and they are forced to swim for hours. A passing ship refuses to take them, but Mahmoud makes a decision and offers his infant sister, Hana, hoping to save her life even if it means they have to give her up forever. Like Josef’s final decision to sacrifice himself for the sake of his sister, this is an extraordinarily heavy burden for a child to have to bear, but the trauma of what these children are experiencing necessitates such difficult and mature decisions. The refugee experience expedites this process of growing up for all three of the young protagonists, showing one of the most difficult consequences of growing up in the midst of such upheaval.