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

Yaneks figuaritve 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 life as a 10-year-old boy before the war was very normal. He attended school, played with his friends, and went to the synagogue with his family. He loves in Mom and Dad and look up them but as the war continues Yanek begins to doubt his fathers 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 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.

Yanek got deported from his home, The Krakow Ghetto, and went through a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the chapters. He lost his parents, now a prisoner, seeing violence, and only being 13 years old. The only person he has left is Uncle Moshe. He tells Yanek, "But we only have one purpose now: survive. Survive at all costs, Yanek. We cannot let these monsters tear us from the pages of the world." Uncle Moshe and Yanek are the only people that are left in their family, and they are determined to survive.

One morning during roll call, Yanek was one of fifty prisoners that got loaded into a truck but the Nazi soldiers didn't tell them where they were going. When they arrived, the Nazi soldiers took the prisoners out of the truck and took them into a factory-looking place, but it was an enormous salt mine. They got into an elevator and went into an underground cathedral. "It was a temple, a chapel,-no, and an underground cathedral. There were statues, an altar, a rail." (Page 101) The next day Yanek is working, breaking odd big chunks of salt that another prisoner shoveled into a donkey cart. Suddenly, Yanek heard a cry out from the chamber around the corner of the mine. It was a voice from one of the Kapos. The prisoners set down their shovels and peeked around the corner to see what happened. It was the Judenrat policemen. "His head had been smashed in with a shovel, and the rest of his body was gashed and torn and bleeding." (Page 103) Kapos came out to see what happened and punished innocent prisoners for what happened to the Judenrat.

Yanek moved from Plaszow to Trzbinia they took the Jews in a dark elevator and Yanek had a panic attack going far into the ground and they had to work and the Germans would purposely try to get the Jews mad. One night at roll call one of the Jews got angry at one of the Germans and tried to attack them but got shot. The Germans decided to punish 6 innocent Jews by hanging them because they believed that they had a plan to try to escape.

Yanek and the rest of the prisoners had gotten stuffed inside a truck and they were all cramped together inside with no room to move. They traveled for about 2-3 days and arrived to their destination and didn't know where they were. They looked and saw black chimneys with flames and smelt something burning. The prisoners smelt rotten and burning flesh, and the prisoners knew they were about to die. "The smell of burning flesh filled the air. I gagged." (Page 124).

Yaneks Figurative Journey

When Yanek and the prisoners were at their lowest, they were just waiting for their death. They knew what was coming, the gas chamber, them getting shoved inside of it, and gas filling the room for them to not be able to breath and die. Yanek felt defeated, he thought that these were his last moments being alive. The other prisoners thought he was crazy for shouting at the ceiling saying "Go on!" I yelled at the showerhead. "Go on, do it! I dare you! I laughed again. "What are you waiting for?" I cried. "Kill me! I give up! You win!". (Page 129) Yanek and the rest of the prisoners stared at the ceiling waiting, just waiting for them to get killed, suddenly, cold water came rushing out of the ceiling. The prisoners were getting showers, not getting killed.

Once Yanek and the prisoners made it to Auschwitz, he saw a big group of new prisoners. The families were wearing average clothes and they looked at the old prisoners like they were monsters. There were kids sticking their tongs out catching snowflakes, only they weren't snowflakes, they were ashes of burned-up Jews. Yanek made his way up the line of the camp and there was Dr Mengle. He lied about his age and occupation to have a better chance at moving forward and it worked. A way that Yanek tried to survive was by waiting at the end of the line together to get the chunkier portion of the soup. As the Allies got closer, the guards took the prisoners on a death march. They would have to walk through thick snow with nothing but their thin pants, shirts, and wooden shoes.

When Yanek went to Bergen-Belson, the commandant put Yanek in the group where he got to live, and he looked strong enough to work to the commandant. The other group got killed because they looked too weak to work. The commandant sent the group that was too weak to get shot and told Yanek and his group that they wouldn't work for a week to regain strength, they would get fresh hot meals and lots of rest. "I couldn't believe my ears. No work for a week? Was this a trick? I could see the other prisoners glancing at one another, wondering the same thing. But it was no trick. We got back to the barracks, we were fed the thickest, richest soup I had eaten in six years, and big pieces of fresh bread, hot from the oven!" (Page 198)

When Yanek and the prisoners arrived at Buchenwald, they were very mad at the SS guards. The guards were mistreating a deer and they were feeding most of the animals there at the zoo big pieces of meat, and they were being fed. The prisoners were mad that the animals were being fed good and they weren't. "The bears in the zoo were fed better than the prisoners." (Page 206) At Buchenwald, if the Nazis saw you carrying a huge rock or a small rock they would shoot you. One day when Yanek was washing himself at the camp water pump, he saw two SS officers lure a deer to a fence and tie it to the fence. The deer tried to free itself but the officers made it to where the deer couldn't. Yanek was very angry that the officers would do that to a deer. "I had seen the Nazis do terrible things. Inhumane, unimaginably cruel things, and I had started to become numb. But some how seeing that deer there thrashing around, trying to free itself from the fence, made my blood boil." (Page 208)

Yanek and the prisoners were stuffed inside a train traveling to a new location, Gross Rosen. The camp was called Dachau. They didn't get anything to eat or drink and prisoners were dying everywhere. Yanek heard he bombs getting closer and closer, he was hoping the bombs killed them because he was just so tired of this nightmare. "The train stopped, and suddenly I had a vision of the bomb falling right on us, killing us all." (Page 213) Yanek wanted everything to end, he was sick and tired of being treated terribly by the Nazis, he was starved and worked every day. Yanek wanted the Allies bombs to blow up everything so it could just be over. "And for a moment I wanted it to happen, the way Fred did long ago. Anything, anything that would get me out of this nightmare." (Page 213) The planes eventually went away and the bombs stopped falling. The train started up again and Yanek didn't know if he was disappointed or if he was relieved that the bombs didn't kill them.

During roll call, soldiers saw a man wipe the west sleet from his face and they started to beat him and ordered him to do the Sachenhuasen Salute. They forced him to squat with his hands held out in front of him. If he moved in any way, if his arms lowered, or his legs moved, or if he fell over on his side, the Nazis would kill him. Next roll call the Nazis forgot about the man and then he finally fell over. The Nazis ran to beat him but he looked unconscious, maybe even dead. The guards dragged his body away and Yanek never saw that man again.

The day after Yanek arrived in Dachau, everyone around him was getting "Camp fever" and he was lucky enough to try his best to stay away from the sick prisoners. Overnight, Yanek could hear the allies' bombs getting closer, and gunshots. They could hear the Nazi soldiers shouting in German, and closer to dawn it all went stopped and went quiet. Then it was morning, and Yanek and the prisoners felt that something was different. Yanek noticed that no Kapo came to wake them up. A prisoner got up to peek outside and said there were no guards. Yanek thought, "What trick is this? I didn't believe it... The man was right- there wasn't a kapo or an SS officer to be seen...The Nazis fled in the night!" (Page 243) Yanek felt relieved that this terrible 6 years of torture was over. But, Yanek was worried about who would take care of him, and who would be there for him. "I could walk up to the front of the gates of the camp and walk away. But where would I go? What would I do? My home was in Krakow, hundreds of kilometers away. And what was home anymore? I had no family to go back to... and even if I tried to go back, who would help me get there? Who would give me real clothes? Who would feed me?" (Pages 243-244) At last, the Allies have come to save the prisoners. Prisoners ran up to the American soldiers to shake their hands, and some hugged one another.

When Yanek first got to America he was brought into his own room and asked how many people he had to share his bed with and when he got told nobody Yanek felt glad to have a bed to himself. "A bed all to myself! Then-wonder upon Wonders- the soldier gave me a blanket, a pillow, and sheets for the bed. Sheets!" (Page 249) Yanek is shocked and excited for a bed to himself, with a pillow, and sheets because when he was being controlled and tortured by the Nazis they didn't give him any of that so he is very happy to have those things to himself.