Yanek and his family live in Krakow, Poland. But in just a blink of an eye, their city was invaded by the Germans beginning WWII. For now, Yanek and his family remain in Krakow. For a little while they stay in their flat with several other families. Anti-Semtic rules have been put in place that persecute Jewish people, taking away any rights they had. Over time, walls are built up around the ghetto to contain the remaining Jews who have not been taken for resettlement or deportation yet. One by one many Jews were relocated to other Jewish ghettos work camps or concentration camps or were killed on site.

Yanek's Figurative Journey

With the stress of no food, and constant hiding, Yanek is living in fear of being caught by the Nazis. His emotional state is one of constant terror and panic at what awaits him at every turn. The unknown aspects of the war leave a feeling of being unsettled. Yanek's early as a 10 year old boy before the war was very normal. He attended school, played with friends, and went to the synagogue with his family. He loves his Mom and Dad and look up to them but as the war continues Yanek begins to doubt his father's constant hopefulness and positivity and wonders who is really right- his father or Uncle Moshe. "I still worried he was wrong, but fresh bread made me forget all of my troubles. for a little while, at least." (Pg. 25) Doubting your parents for the first time is a struggle for Yanek especially in war-torn Poland.

"..But we have only one purpose now; survive, survive at all costs, Yanek. we cannot let these monsters tear us from the pages of the world."(pg. 70). in 3 chapters, Yanek went from thinking about visiting his friend's house to just learning that his parents are gone from Salas, one of his cousins. Yanek went through a tremendous loss of losing all of his family members and had to be moved to a work camp. At this time he had no parents at 13, this is a very lonely time and he may give up. But somewhere in his mind was wanting him to survive this. He had to survive by not standing out.

After being pulled out of the camp and then loaded into a truck, he was in an elevator with other people so he was uncomfortable and had a panic attack temporarily. When he could see, he was amazed by how beautiful the salt mine was. ¨They stayed still though, frozen in salt. As trapped and helpless as we were.¨(pg100). and then when it was morning the next day Yanek felt anger towards a former Judenrat who had died the day after that.

While he was at the concentration camp. he had felt a lot of anger from the Germans because he was treated like an animal. His fury had turned into fear once he had seen someone beat up an SS officer. Not only did he die but also a boy around his age got hanged because of the man´s actions. he had accepted this and would rather die without a fight than bring others to die with him.

Yanek had marched to the depot. was moved into the cattle which many other Prisoners were also in, giving very little room. ¨´ They´re going to turn you into soap, Jews!´ one of the boys yelled.¨(Pg 117). This was Yanek's first time outside Kraków, which was a bad experience. There were Anti-Semitic people throwing snowballs at him. As he reaches the death camp he sees a chimney smoking and then he is moved to one of the buildings that has a burning chimney.

Yanek´s Figurative Journey

¨Kill me, I prayed. Please kill me and put an end to this. I´m ready. Water rained down on me. Freezing water so it made me scream. Water! Not gas! I was going to live! I laughed and cried, and so did the other men. ¨(Pg 129).

From the lowest point in his life, Yanek felt like he was born again from the shower. despite all of what he is going in the Holocaust, he was still alive,

¨I was alive.¨(Pg 130).

Yanek does anything to still feel like a human, he takes part in someone else´s bar mitzvah, giving a toy horse and advice from Uncle Moshe to the kid. He also had brushed his teeth with his fingers, cleaned his hands and his body with just water.

Yanek had developed an inseparable friendship with a fellow Jew named Fred. He broke one of the rules Uncle Moshe told him this time. They have 3 things in common, one of them is that they were close to each other´s age. Another was that their family was either killed or presumed dead, they had lived in the same town before the war. Fred was hung due to being sick and couldn't work, and Yanek was upset and said a kaddish for Fred.

When Yanek was at the roll call, He and the other prisoners had to stand for hours.

He had witnessed a prisoner getting beaten up and then had to do the Sachsenhausen salute and only later that prisoner got killed. At the soldier´s mess hall. Yanek had to sing as part of the choir along with other prisoners for an hour and They were given no food at all. That night, during roll call, the guards decided to have a boxing tournament. which they made some of the prisoners be the boxers and forced the other Prisoners to watch.

Yanek has been shipped off by cattle car to Bergen-Belsen camp to arrive in the morning. He was fed heart soup and warm bread when he got to the barracks. and then a week later he was back to work. He was punched in the face for looking at Moonface. And then he ran in a race just to get away from Moonface and to a new camp.

¨The Nazis had killed so many of us, they were running out of Jews.¨(pg.209). The Jews were mistreated. Yanek was upset about how the Nazis treated the animals so much better and the Jews were starving. The Nazis would never mistreat animals but they killed so many Jews. The camp is very brutal and Ilse Koch killed someone just for having another tattoo.

Yanek talks about how he goes to all the camps he had gone so far was like purgatory. They were not better nor worse than the last and they are different, yet they are the same. He told himself there would be another world after this one and it would be where he would be happy and have family again. In a dream he had, he was in a beautiful green and yellow meadow, until a storm came in and made him fall down a hole, causing him trying to cling on to anything. this was to symbolize his early life before the nazis and then him trying to survive.

One the day after Yanek got to Dachau. A man next to him got sick. He tried to find somewhere else to sleep but it was almost impossible for him. There was a lot of bombing happening and then it stopped. When he came out, at first he thought it was the Nazis coming to kill them all. but he realized it was the Allies coming to liberate the Jews from the anti-Semitic Germany.

for over 5 years, Yanek had been so used to the harsh camp life and ghetto life. crowded with so little space, beaten up for basically no good reason. seeing so many deaths and had no basic modern item (like a toothbrush) nor comfort to the point now in Yanek´s life that he cried when he was given these things back to him. Thanks to the Jews were the scapegoats of the Nazis.