Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Refugee, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Coming of Age
Injustice and Cruelty vs. Empathy and Social Responsibility
Hope vs. Despair
Family, Displacement, and Culture
Invisibility and the Refugee Experience
Summary
Analysis
Less than a day after leaving Havana, the St. Louis passes Miami. The U.S. Coast Guard cruises alongside the ship, seemingly to prevent it from getting any closer to shore. Some of the children continue to play games, but the adults walk around mournfully. The only adult who appears happy is Rachel. For days she had locked herself in their cabin, crying and mourning for Aaron. But after the St. Louis left Cuba, she cleaned herself up, put on makeup and a dress, and went to the dance hall. She has been there the entire day.
Again, Gratz highlights the lack of empathy and social responsibility that countries as a whole possess. The governments of the U.S. and Cuba surely understand that turning the refugees away could amount to a death sentence for many of the people on board, and yet they still choose to refuse to let the passengers disembark.
Themes
Josef finds Rachel in the dance hall, and she asks him to dance with her. Josef refuses, thinking he is too old to dance with his mother. She continues to dance anyway. He asks why she seems happy that Aaron is gone. Rachel responds by telling Josef how he got his name: he was named for her brother Josef, who died in the Great War. She then tells him, “You can live life as a ghost, waiting for death to come, or you can dance.”
Following Aaron’s despair, Rachel swings in the opposite direction, trying to will herself to have hope. Her statement that one can live life as a ghost, or one can dance, puts herself in direct opposition with Aaron as she tries to continue to find ways to enjoy life even in the face of uncertainty and tragedy.
Themes
At that moment, the bandleader says that there will be an announcement in the social hall. Josef and Rachel go to the hall, where they see a few passengers who had been working as a committee with Captain Schroeder on where they might disembark. They reveal that the U.S. has refused to take them. The other passengers cry out, particularly a man Josef recognizes named Pozner. Pozner says he has been to the concentration camps, and now refuses to return to Germany.
In contrast to the Nazi officials on board the ship (as evidenced by Schiendick in the next exchange), Captain Schroeder does continue to have empathy for the passengers as he goes out of his way to make sure that they can find a place to live safely, pleading to the government on their behalf. He recognizes the refugees’ humanity and knows that they are worth trying to save.
Themes
As the panic erupts, Josef spies Schiendick lingering in the doorway, smiling. Josef grows angry. The committee assures the passengers that they are going to try to find other landing places in Europe. Rachel returns to the dance hall, saying that other people will figure out a plan, but Josef refuses to go with her.
In contrast with Schroeder, Schiendick continues to view the Jewish people on board as subhuman. His smug amusement in the face of their panic and life-threatening dilemma again exhibits his and the Nazis’ cruelty.
Themes
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After the meeting, Pozner catches Josef and tells him that there is a group of passengers who are going to try to take the ship hostage and run it aground on the American coast. Josef is hesitant, unsure that the plan will work, but Pozner argues that they have no alternative. Pozner says they need Josef, because he is one of the only people on board who knows how to get to the bridge of the ship.
This exchange with Pozner marks another development in Josef’s maturation. Whereas he was previously taken to the bridge of the ship because he was part of a group of children, now he is being called to lead others there as an adult, and aid what amounts to mutiny and hostage-taking. Josef’s responsibility, and the weight of the choices he is forced to make, continue to grow.
Themes
