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
Josef watches Ruthie splashing happily in the swimming pool. He wishes now that he could join them and be a little kid again, but he knows that he now has responsibilities to keep his mother and sister safe. Pozner approaches Josef, asking if he’s ready—Josef has agreed to help take over the ship.
Ten men gather as a group near the social hall, carrying metal candlesticks and pipes. Josef, by far the youngest, leads them to the bridge. They encounter the first officer, and quickly grab him and push him into another room. On the bridge, they attack three sailors, taking them hostage. They tell the officer to fetch Captain Schroeder.
The fact that Josef is by far the youngest indicates how, in a normal childhood, he would never be expected to do something like take a ship hostage. But because of their fraught situation in finding a place to land, Josef is forced to mature and take on these adult obligations.
Themes
When Schroeder arrives, Pozner tells him that they are taking over the ship and going anywhere but Germany. Schroeder tells them calmly that his crew will overpower them and that they are inviting criminal charges upon themselves. Josef cries out that the passengers will hold the crew as hostages to make them sail somewhere other than Germany. Schroeder tells Josef that the crew will only obey him, and that he refuses to take the ship off course. He points out that Josef does not know how to steer the ship.
Josef illustrates how much weight he has taken upon himself not only by joining in this group, but also to be willing to speak up against Schroeder. Josef’s actions are necessitated by the fact that he feels he must be the one to protect his family, now that his father is gone and his mother is not taking that responsibility upon herself.
Themes
Schroeder says that he understands their desperation, but tells them that they are committing a crime. If they leave the bridge, he assures them, he will overlook what has happened. Schroeder promises that he will do everything in his power to land the ship in England rather than take them back to Germany, even to the point of running the ship aground. The other men agree, but Josef is furious.
Schroeder continues to underscore the contrast between himself and the Nazis. Even though he is not Jewish, he has compassion and empathy for the passengers on board and recognizes that he has a responsibility to protect them.
Themes
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