Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Prisoner B-3087, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Determination and Luck
Anti-Semitism and Cruelty vs. Humanity
Connection vs. Isolation
Coming of Age, Trauma, and Remembrance
Identity vs. Anonymity
Summary
Analysis
One morning, the prisoners in Auschwitz are told that workers are needed in Sachsenhausen. Yanek suspects that this is because the Allied planes and bombs are getting closer, and they are trying to move the prisoners out of Poland and into Germany. The prisoners are told that they must walk because there are no trains—a good sign that the war is ending, but a terrible fate for the prisoners. They have no idea how far they’ll have to walk.
As the war nears to an end, conditions do not improve for Yanek and the other prisoners—if anything, they are worse. The Nazis continue to put the prisoners through a torturous and grueling march. There is so much death, as Yanek explains, that they begin to call it a “death march.” Yet the Nazis are completely uncaring about how many of the prisoners die along the way, as this simply plays into their desire to eliminate the Jews.
Themes
The Nazis give each prisoner half a loaf of bread for the whole trip. Yanek resolves to eat a bit at a time, to make it last. He and the others march for hours upon hours. Those who cannot keep up are shot and left by the road. Those without shoes are the first to die because of how cold it is, which makes Yanek grateful that he has wooden clogs. There is no water: the prisoners eat the snow that falls on them most days, and at night they sleep on top of one another for warmth.
During the march, Gratz illustrates both Yanek’s luck and his fierce determination. Yanek has been lucky to get a pair of shoes that fits; without them, he would not survive. But he walks for hours on end despite the cold and the hunger, learning ways to cope with both so that he might be able to survive.
Themes
Five or six days into the march, the prisoners collectively grow exhausted. Yanek sees that they look like skeletons. He recognizes that “all these half-dead creatures around [him] had been people.” He wonders which had been doctors, or teachers, or musicians. Yanek realizes that he’s spent six years as a prisoner. He would have been thinking about a career or university—but the years preparing for that had been stolen from him.
As Yanek looks around him, he sees how much the Nazis have taken from them. Not only have they been dehumanized, but any markers of identity have been completely taken from them. His observation that the prisoners are now “half-dead creatures” rather than human beings emphasizes how this loss of humanity effectively kills people even before they’re physically dead. As Yanek realizes that he might have been finishing school soon, Gratz reminds readers that Yanek is still just a teenager, despite having matured so much due to the suffering and horror he has experienced.
Themes
In the distance, Yanek sees Allied planes dropping bombs. He wants to cheer them on but knows he cannot. One of the prisoners starts to sing in Czech. Yanek is sure the Nazis will shoot him, but they let him continue. Another prisoner joins in. Another sings in Polish; others in German, Italian and French. They sing a hundred different songs, and the Nazis let them sing. Yanek wonders if the Nazis might also miss the way the world was before the war.
This moment of singing in the face of immense trauma shows how, despite the dehumanization that the Jews have experienced, they are able to retain some of their humanity through songs that connect them to their respective cultures. And as Yanek observes, perhaps there are people in the Nazi regimes who preferred life before the war but (like the prisoners) found it difficult to rebel in the face of their government’s cruelty.
Themes
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