Yanek and his family live in Kraków, 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 Kraków. For a little while they stay in their flat with several other families. Anti-Sermetic 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, and concentration camps or were killed on site.

Yaneks 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 life 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 looks 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 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.

In these few chapters, Yanek goes through a lot. One of the most notable things that happens to him is his parents get taken by the German soldiers and possibly killed, along with his aunts, uncles, and cousins. He also witnesses multiple deaths including sick patients from a hospital and even innocent civilians in the street. The only one of his family members remaining was his female cousin, Sala. She is the person who informs him that his parents were taken. Yanek then gets taken by the soldiers to the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp where he reunites with his Uncle Moshe. At this camp, he witnesses even more violence whether it's people getting shot or just getting hit by the butts of riffles. In this camp, Yanek also attends another prisoner's Bar Mitzvah and despite the circumstances, this brings hope when the prisoners come together to celebrate an important Jewish tradition.

After spending time at the Plaszów camp, Yanek is relocated to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. The Jews traveled throughout the Salt Mine on foot through tunnels where they saw beautiful things. The Cathedral brought some sort of distraction to the Jews because they were witnessing something truly beautiful for the first time in years. In the mine, Yanek and the other Jews performed tasks such as digging, hauling salt, and other labor. Yanek wasn't the only person from the Kraków Ghetto, an old SS officer who was unfair to the Jews was also found here working as a prisoner. Everybody was unhappy with him so one night a group of Jews brutally killed the SS officer and filled his wounds with the salt from the mine. "something glittered and shone in his cuts. Salt. Someone had rubbed salt all in his wounds." (pg 103). This moment reminded Yanek of a man named "Abimelech" who Yanek and his father had read about from the Torah from long before the war had started.

This was a punishment and a purification.

At Trzebinia, the Jews were forced into hard work and unnecessary labor. They had to move heavy rocks with no wheel barrel or gear. They used their bare hands to move huge rocks and it would scratch up their hands and chest. Once they spent all morning moving rocks across the camp, the SS officer ordered them to move the stones back because they were an evil perpetrator. This made Yanek very upset. He wanted to sleep on a mattress. He wanted to sleep with pillows and blankets. He wanted to eat more than watery broth. He wanted fresh bread, not week old loaves. He wanted to be treated like a human. For once, Yanek wanted to fight for himself and he wasn't the only Jew who did. A prisoner tried to fight a guard and escape but his plan was unsuccessful. He was shot and the Kapos assumed he wasn't the only person behind the plan and the soldiers hung a random young Jewish boy. Yanek no longer thought about trying to escape.

Yanek's literal journey to Birkenau was very intense. It started in Trzebinia when the German Soldiers were holding the Jews at gunpoint and were marching them to a train. They weren't on a normal train that carries passengers, they were on a cattle cart. He and hundreds of other Jews were all crowded, even to where Yanek couldn't lift his arm people were dying due to suffocation. Yanek however was fortunate because he was next to a crack so he got fresh air and could eat the snow for water. He overheard people talking about how Birkenau was not a normal camp, it was a death camp. People from outside were throwing snowballs at the train and this made Yanek realize everybody was against the Jews and he was helpless.

Yaneks Figurative Journey

On pages 128-129, Yanek is at his lowest point. He is taking a shower for the first time in a while, and he thinks it will be a gas shower that kills him, but it ends up being a normal shower. ¨Kill me, I prayed. Please kill me and put an end to this. I'm ready.¨ There was a short moment where he wanted to die and he started to give up on trying to stay alive. Later, he realizes that he's made it so far so he has to survive. He refused to die, he was going to stay alive no matter what the cost. He also becomes more of a mentor to people younger than him because he was once their age and was going through the same cruel stuff.

Once Yanek and his Birkenau group made it to Auschwitz, he saw a big group of new prisoners. Families were wearing average clothes and they looked at the old prisoners like they were some sort of monster, but what did they know? Soon they wouldn't look much different. Kids were sticking their tongues out catching snowflakes, only they weren't snowflakes, they were the ashes of the burned-up Jews. Yanek made his way up the line of the camp and there was Doctor Mengele. Yanek lied about his age and occupation to have a better chance at moving forward and it worked. At this camp, Yanek met a friend named Fred. They would wait at the end of the line together to get the chunkier portion of the soup. Yanek soon watched Fred die. 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.

Yaneks becomes very fortunate after surviving multiple death camps. While he's at Sachsenhausen, it is different. They didn't go straight to work. Instead, they got sent to the barracks and received bread and soup. After the ate they went to bed. This was a huge mercy for them because they have been on the death march for 9 days so immediately getting food other than snow and being able to sleep somewhere other than the ground felt great. In his bunk, he was thinking how familiar he was with death. "death was so common, so ordinary, that the dead were like fallen trees in the forest-so unremarkable that they were only moved when they got in the way." (pg 188) This means he saw death so much that he didn't think anything about it until a body was in his way. At this camp Yanek sees another sign saying "Abreit Macht Frei" (work sets you free).

On the way to Bergen-Belson, the prisoners took a train again. The Nazi soldiers would drop loaves of bread through the top of the cart just because they enjoyed watching the Jews fight for it. Once the commandant of the camp saw the prisoners, he didn't think they were ready to work. The prisoners had no work for a whole week and they got fed actual fresh bread and rich soup until they regained their strength. The next week when Yanek was back at work, a guard called him over just to punch him in the nose without explanation. "Moonface" a prisoner called him. Yanek knew that the guards were murderers of the Jews, however, Moonface was an actual killer from before the war even started. Moonface continued to pick on Yanek and torture him more than any other guards have ever done. Once Yanek had heard the guards were trying to get workers for another camp, Yanek volunteered, and he was fortunate to be accepted to move to a new camp without Moonface.

Throughout the novel, Yanek is taken to many Concentration Camps. The next one was Buchenwald; however, this camp was different from the others. Buchenwald was like a little city with a theater and zoo. Many of the Nazi soldiers had a family so they needed to have entertainment while at the camps. Yanek would often look at the animals. He noticed that he and the other Jews were treated so much worse than the animals. Yanek was looking at the zoo and saw a bear getting fed steak. He was so food-deprived that he claimed he would fight the bear just to have a bite of that steak. There was a part where Yanek saw a deer getting mistreated and that upset him. Yanek felt he and the deer were similar because they were not treated like living creatures. "seeing that deer there thrashing around, trying to free itself from the fence, made my blood boil. I wanted to run over and untie it" (208) The Nazi who tied up the deer got punished while if they killed a Jew, they would not think anything of it.

Yaneks is now being taken to Gross-Rosen, where he takes a train once again. This train ride is described similarly to how it was when he was on his way to Birkenau: "People died all around me, just like before, but now I hardly took notice of it." Yanek has seen death many times, and he is now used to it. The train was packed tightly with no food and no water. On the train, there were many bombs in the near distance. This brought Yanek and the other Jews hope because this meant the allies were coming and getting closer. The liberation would soon happen. At the camp, a guard noticed Yanek was missing his top button. Yanek didn't even notice and he wasn't sure why it even mattered but the guard was angry and gave him 20 lashes or hits with a whip. Yanek had to count in German how many times he got hit and when he would forget a number, he would have to recount. That night he had a dream that he was in a meadow and a dark cloud appeared. This cloud was symbolizing how the Nazis came and attacked the Jews.

On the way to the last camp, Dachau, the Jews are taken on a train. There were so many bombs being dropped that even one hit a cart full of all the prisoner's documents. Yanek was frightened by this and he thought the Nazis kill the rest of them, so he removed the Star of David pin from his shirt and went to fit in with the Poles. Somebody snitched on Yanek and he was very fortunate to not have any punishment. At the camp, Yanek began to worry because the man in the bunk got "camp fever". Everybody was trying to avoid him but in a crammed cell, it's difficult to do so. Prisoners died by hundreds every day and this made him worried that soon he may be infected with the sickness. This camp was chaos, however, the crematorium was still burning all day. One night, there were so many bombs nearby that the camp buildings were shaking. The following morning, Yanek woke up on his own. There was no kapo yelling at them to wake. It was only his body telling itself it was time. One prisoner got up and didn't see any guards. For years the Jews would only do what they were told, but now they were finally free. Yanek didn't trust this. He thought a guard would appear from behind a wall and shoot all of them. Nobody was there. No guards, only the prisoners. In the courtyard, Yanek worried about what he would do. Where would he go? His home was millions of kilometers away and it was most likely owned by a new family. He had no possessions. No money. No family to be there for him. The Jews then heard soldiers coming back to the camp. They thought this was the end, they would get shot, only the soldiers weren't Germans, they were the American allies.

After the American allies rescued the prisoners, they were taken to Munich by truck and given blankets and food. At Munich, Yanek got to sleep alone for the first time in years with a pillow, sheets, and blanket. Yanek cried as he held a toothbrush for the first time in years. The dining room also brought emotion to Yanek because he hadn't seen chairs or a table in six years. For dinner, Yanek finally ate food other than bread and soup. They brought out roast beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Yanek began to remember his family. His mother, father, aunts, uncles, cousins, and his friend Fred. Everybody. They were all dead now. One day Yanek was walking around and he saw a familiar face. He saw his old neighbor Mrs. Immerglick. They were both emotional to see each other and she informed Yanek that his cousin, Youzek was alive. Yanek would begin to visit his cousin and his wife every day until he signed up for a program that helped move Jewish minors to America.