Yaneks literal journey

Yanek and his family live in Krakow Poland, but in just a blink of an eye their city was invaded by the Germans beginning WW2 for now Yanek and his family remain in Krakow for a little while they stay in their flat with several other families Anti-Semitic 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, 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 up by the Nazis, His emotional state is one of the 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 attend 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 farther 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) Doubling your parents for the first time is a struggle for Yanek especially in war-torn Poland.

Yanek is loaded onto a truck with 50 prisoners and is deportation off to the Wieliczka salt mine and in the mine they get a tour of the mine. In the morning Yanek gets up and goes to the mine to chips away at the salt with his pickax.he hears a kapo cry out in terror. Yanek peers around the corner to see what has happened Holtzmans head has been bashed in with a shovel, and the rest of his body is torn and bleeding and with his cuts rubbed with salt.

At Birkenau is that When the train arrives at Birkenau yanek could smell the burning flesh in the air and that the train sat there for hours before the prisoners are let out. Yanek feels as though this is another form of torture, but is Finally let out and the door opens and the prisoners are marched toward a big brick building with chimneys. Yanek thinks about how much he’s done, how much he's already survived, only to have it taken all away by the Nazis. He begins to cry, wishing that he had let the Nazis kill him back in the ghetto.

Figurative Journey

Yanek felt fear from arriving to the Birkenau camp and feels he is gonna die from one on the Nazis.

After a few months at Birkenau Yanek is then deportation to Auschwitz because they need more workers. At the train station there where new Jews that had real clothes, luggage, and with children. Yanek feels deeply sorry for the new arrivals.

Figurative Journey

Yanek feels deeply sorry for the new arrivals and thinks that these people will soon look like him.

Yanek is shipped by a cattle car to Bergen Belsen and the other prisoners arrive and the commandant is disappointed by how weak they all look and then he starts to point at the prisoners and separate.

Figurative Journey

Yanek feels happier and get more courage at the Bergen camp because they are fed fresh bread and the thickest soup Yanek had eaten in six years and slowly Yanek begins to get stronger and he also notes that there is no gas chamber or chimneys burning bodies, and he thinks that Bergen Belsen may be better than the others.

Yanek arrives at Buchenwald and sees prisoners are terrified and Yanek has to carrier rocks and is learning to carry a stone just the right size and if it is too large and he dropped it, the Nazis would shoot him and if it was too small, they would shoot him for being lazy. Some of the Jews are chained to carts and whipped while they haul loads of stones.

Figurative Journey

Yanek feels horrible when he is whipped like an animal and is scared if he will drops a rock and get shot by a Nazi or the animals eating better then him.

When yanek arrives at Gross Rosen, however, his determination kicks in again: he wants to work and survive. Yanek builds more barracks but then at roll call a Nazi soldier lashes Yanek with a whip instructing him to keep count.

Figurative Journey

Yanek keeps trying to survive while the soilders lashes on them during count.

Yanek survival at Dachau is due mostly to luck and that he just as easily have succumbed to typhus like so many of the other prisoners and despite his consistent determination to live. Yanek himself acknowledges his luck in not getting sick by describing it as a “miracle,” grateful that he is able to survive after enduring so much hardship already.

Figurative Journey

Yanek keeps fighting everyday to survive and finally make it out.

The Americans immediately take the survivors away from Dachau and they travel by train to Munich and the Allies will house them temporarily and when yanek is shown his new room he asks how many people he has to share the bunk with and the soldier says that he’ll have it to himself, which shocks Yanek as Yanek gains small pieces of his life back.

Figurative Journey

Yanek feels better and has survived all the pain and struggles from the Holocaust and is now free and can go to America and start a new life.