In Jane Yolen’s novel The Devil’s Arithmetic, the characters constantly make sacrifices big and small. The story begins with a Seder dinner, a Jewish tradition that has sacrificial elements built into it, such as a part where everyone at the table eats bitter herbs (to remind them of how their ancestors suffered) and a part near the end where everyone sacrifices some of their wine as an offering to the prophet Elijah. These small sacrifices foreshadow the much larger sacrifices that Hannah will witness when she gets transported from her Seder dinner back to Poland, 1942, in a concentration camp.
At the concentration camp, staying alive is difficult for the Jewish prisoners, and the few lucky survivors only make it due to the sacrifices that others in the community make. Hannah learns this early when Rivka sacrifices a gold ring she has in order to make sure that Hannah gets assigned to kitchen duty instead of the much more arduous task of woodcutting. Hannah also witnesses it with Gitl, who continues to give a portion of her meals to children in the camp, even as she herself becomes dangerously thin and frail. Ultimately, Hannah shows what she’s learned by making her own big sacrifice. When a guard rounds up Esther, Shifre, and Rivka, Hannah swaps places with Rivka. Hannah knows she has a life somewhere in the future in America, but Rivka only has her current life. Although this sacrifice seems to lead to Hannah’s death in the concentration camp, it also brings her back to the Seder dinner, where she discovers that her Aunt Eva is none other than Rivka. Even though the time travel element of the novel is pure fantasy, The Devil’s Arithmetic nevertheless illustrates how sacrifices connect people to their community by allowing people in that community to thrive—and pass on the community’s traditions to future generations.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Sacrifice ThemeTracker
Sacrifice Quotes in The Devil’s Arithmetic
“I’m tired of remembering,” said Hannah to her mother as she climbed into the car.
Rosemary gets to eat jellybeans, and I get to eat horseradish.
Was knowing—or not knowing—more frightening? She couldn’t decide. A strange awful taste rose in her mouth, more bitter even than the Seder’s bitter herbs. And they were for remembering.
“When the man finished the number, he reached out and touched the collar of her dress, smoothing it down gently. “Live,” he whispered. “For my Chaya. For all our Chayas. Live. And remember.”
“Organize,” Rivka said. “As I have organized some shoes for you, and not wooden clogs, either. And sweaters. You will need them because the nights are cold still.”
Suddenly Hannah noticed that one of the camp babies was still cradled in a wash tub. Without stopping to ask, she grabbed it up and ran with the child into the middle of the midden. Garbage slipped along her bare legs.
Part of her revolted against the insanity of the rules. Part of her was grateful. In a world of chaos, any guidelines helped. And she knew that each day she remained alive, she remained alive. One plus one plus one. The Devil’s arithmetic, Gitl called it.
The commandant stood up and stared at her, his eyes gray and unreadable. “Are you his sister?”
She shook her head dumbly, afraid to say more.
“That is good. For you.”
The memories of Lublin and the shtetl and the camp itself suddenly seemed like the dreams. She lived, had lived, would live in the future—she, or someone with whom she shared memories. But Rivka had only now.
Then all three of them took deep, ragged breaths and walked in through the door into endless night.
“In my village, in the camp . . . in the past,” Eva said, “I was called Rivka.”
Hannah nodded and took her aunt’s fingers from her lips. She said, in a voice much louder than she had intended, so loud that the entire table hushed at its sound, “I remember. Oh, I remember.”
It later became an adoption agency, the finest in the Mideast. She called it after her young niece, who had died a hero in the camps: CHAYA.
Life.
