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-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 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 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 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 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.

The Nazis are starting to get more and more Jews every day into these concentration camps. Yanek and his family are spread out and he doesn't know if they are dead or alive, but Uncle Moshe is at the same camp with him. Yanek finds Moshe and yells for him which is not allowed but luckily the Nazi guard thinks it was the prisoner him so Yanek wasn't killed someone else was. Yanek is starting to see more and more death but listens to Moshe's advice by keeping his head down and not attracting anyone to him. Amon Goeth is the leader at the camp Yanek is at and is one of the most powerful men around. Moshe tells Yanek to try and stay out of his path and he is very lucky he has a job outside of the parade grounds. Amon Goeth is one of the most Anti-Semitic leaders and Nazis around. He would sit on his balcony in the morning and kill at least one Jew before eating breakfast. Amon would say it was his "target practice" to make him better with his rifle. Yanek was worried about his family and where they had been sent to. He knew that this war was just getting started and he was in for a long ride.

Yanek and 50 other prisoners were loaded into trucks. None of the prisoners including Yanek knew where they were going, some said they were going to another concentration camp and some said the Nazis were taking them away to kill them. They ended up in the salt mine in Wieliczka. Yanek started to get nervous and worried when they took the elevator over 1,000 feet underground. This was one of the few camps not known for being an Extermination or Death camp. When Yanek was put into his job he thought the Nazis weren't as big of a threat to the Jews here because it is so large and the Kapos have a lot of space to cover. But when he heard two Jews arguing he witnessed one of the worst deaths he had seen, After noticing one of the men was sliced the other took salt and poured it into his wounds giving the man a gruesome and burning pain he would not be able to survive. Yanek's time at the salt mine was short lived as he would be transferred to Trezbinia next.

Yanek started to gain more and more anger from the way the Nazis had begun to treat the Jews. Yanek's job was to carry rocks back and forth across the camp. The rocks were heavy and rough, they were not given any gloves or wheel barrels to move the rocks with. They had to do it with their bare hands. The Nazi guards would yell at you or beat you if you were moving too slowly or if they thought the rock was too small. The Nazis were putting the Jews through persecution, and Yanek was suffering with all the pain he had been through, In the text it states " I put my arms around another stone and lifted, my back crying out in pain. The rock tore and scraped at my skin as I cradled it to my chest and staggered across the yard to dump it in the new pile." Yanek was tired of this treatment from the Nazis that he wanted to react and fight agasint them. But he didn't want to do it he wanted somebody else so he doesn't get punished. Yanek is able to control his anger and not lash out on any of the guards. Yanek knew that this war is starting to become worse and worse for him and the rest of the Jews. His next stop is Birkenau.

In chapter 16, Yanek has an eventful experience of being transferred into a different camp in a crowded cattle cart. When he is first loaded into the cart, he realizes it will be a crowded and horrible ride. Everyone is squished together and if the ride is long people will start to die right by him. Yanek is lucky that he is sitting right by an air vent which helps him breathe easier. When they arrive at Birkenau they get their at night, the sky was lit up like a bonfire and black chimney's gave off a horrible smell through out the camp. The Nazis stopped the train right outside of the gates and did not move or let the Jews out of the carts for what Yanek said must've been hours. Yanek started to become more and more confused and worried about what is going to happen. Will the Nazis leave us in here to rot to death? Will they let us out soon?

Yanek's Figurative Journey

Yanek starts in the shower thinking about when his time is coming to die but tries to stay positive repeating to himself "I'm still alive." But Yanek is struggling to have that state of mind when he is watching other people die right in front of him. At this point Yanek was tired of the treatment from the Nazis. He wanted to be killed. On page 129 Yanek states, " 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!" Yanek is done with how the Nazis treated him, he is begging for it to end and he doesn't care what happens to him anymore.

In Chapter 19-21, Yanek was taken to Auschwitz. When he got there he was nervous about if he would die here or if he would make it long enough to be taken to another camp. When he was waiting to see where he would be taken he was given a good piece of advice. When the Nazi guard asks you your age and what you do say you are 18 and you work in trades. Because if he told his real age of 16 and he is a student he would be sent to the Gas Chambers to die. During Yanek's time spent in Auschwitz he makes a friend named Fred. At first Yanek was hesitant of talking to Fred, because what Moshe told him was to not make friends with anyone and don't drag attention to yourself in anyway. Yanek decided to take that risk though and become Fred's friend. This is the first time in awhile Yanek has been able to connect with someone and talk to them. But one day Fred was very sick and couldn't get out of the bunks to make it to roll call. Yanek tried his best to motivate Fred to get out before he was would be beaten by a Kapo. When one of the SS guards came and saw that Fred was unable to move and walk he would be beaten over and over again with a club. Yanek tried his best to stop the guard but was pulled away by another prisoner before he would be killed to. Just when Yanek thought he finally found a friend and someone he could trust, in a blink of an eye he's gone.

Yanek's trip to Sachsenhausen was one of the hardest things he had experienced during his time in all of the camps. The Nazis took the Jews on what they called a "Death March." The Death March was a 12-13 day long walk from Auschwitz to Sachsenhausen. The Nazis punished the Jews the whole way there, they gave them half a loaf of bread for the whole trip. If you fell behind or failed to walk at a certain speed you were taken into a nearby field and shot dead. When the Nazis arrived at the camp the camps started to become crazy and they lost control. The guards started to kill Jews and they would make them sing to them while they were eating right in front of them. They made the Jews box each other until death or they were tired. Some of the Jews were so scared to be brutally killed or killed in front of everyone and made fun of by the Nazis that they just took into their own hands and killed themselves. They would run into electric fences get stabbed all over by barbwire and electrocuted and burned.

When Yanek got to Bergen-Belsen he thought that he would not make it when he saw the Nazis split the Jews into two different groups, Yanek was scared he would get put into a group with the weaker people and was afraid he was going to get shot. But when he realized that his group was chosen to take a week off of work to rest. Yanek catching another break from the Nazis was very lucky, but when he realized that one of the Kapos was out to get him he thought at any point he would kill him. Moon Face was the kapo that would beat and target Yanek when they were eating. Moon Face was a perpetrator and a murder So Yanek's dream of warm and hot food turned into a nightmare when he was getting kicked and beaten, so he requested to be transferred to another camp. The Nazis made Yanek run back and fourth around the barracks to prove he is still able to work well at the camps. Yanek passed and could be transferred away from Bergen-Belsen and away from Moon Face.

When Yanek arrived in Buchenwald, he had heard rumors about the zoo. But it took him a while to see it in person. When Yanek saw all the animals in the zoo he saw one of the guards giving a bear a big piece of steak and Yanek said he would fight the bear for the steak that's how hungry he was. But he also saw some of the animals like the deer being treated poorly by some guards. Yanek started to hear conversations about how the Nazis were starting to panic and that they were running out of Jews to work. Yanek said, " The Nazis had killed so many of us, they were running out of Jews." The Nazis are starting to kill less Jews because they are running out and the Jews are moving from camp to camp quickly.

Yanek was again transferred to Gross-Rosen by cattle cart, which was worse this time. He could feel death and knew that the war was starting to come to the Germans. When they were in the cart the only thing avoiding watching death over and over again was to sleep—but sometimes trying to sleep results in you not waking back up either. When they got to Gross-Rosen they were part right back to work and given no time to rest. Yanek said, " I had been surrounded by death for so long, seen so many men die before my eyes, lived with so many dead bodies piled and stacked and strewn about like so much firewood, I almost couldn't care anymore." Yanek didn't care what happened or what his future after this would look like he was desperate for it to end.

On the way to Dachau, the Allies bombed one of the carts that had all of the documents for the Nazis. Yanek took advantage of this taking his Star of David off of his arm so the Nazis wouldn't know he was Jewish. But one of the Poles in line saw Yanek rip his star off and switch lines. When they got to Dachau they asked every prisoner if they were Jewish or Polish and information about them. When it was Yanek's turn in line he told the Nazis he was Polish and they sent him over to the Pole side but the guy in line that saw him take the star off of his arm told the guard what he saw. The Nazi guard took Yanek from the Pole side and threw him with the other Jews. When Yanek was in the camp, the guards immediately put them to work. When they woke up something was different, no Kapos was hitting them to wake them up. There were no guards outside. Did the Nazis flee? Were the Jews free? Then they saw a group of guards come through the gates and thought the nazis were back, but it was the Americans. Yanek was free, he survived. But where would he go? Who would look out for him? How was he going to make money?

When the Americans told the Jews they were moving somewhere some of them were reluctant to move because what if the Americans were on the Germans' side and they didn't know it? Yanek was shocked to hear that he had his bed with a blanket and pillow all to himself. When they went to dinner they had a table with chairs with warm food and drinks for one of the first times. They could eat without worrying about getting beat with a lash or having to sing to any guards. The next day Yanek went out to see all the other Jews and he saw his neighbor from Krakow, Mrs. Immerglick. When he was talking to Mrs. Immerglick she told him his cousins also survived. Yanek had a family to go to, someone to look out for him. But they all told Yanek the best choice for him was to move to America and live out his future. Yanek listened to them and applied for funding and papers to get into the States. Yanek survived one of the most horrific events that ever happened.