Daniel's Story

“The three of us laughed and joked about it, but as I lay in bed that night, I knew that none of us had found it fun—or funny. We were separate now from everyone else in Frankfurt. Separate and somehow less important.”

After the fight with the Hitler Youth boys, Daniel and his friends try to laugh it off, as if it’s a harmless juvenile incident. Yet they’re not so innocent. They realize the fight represents a serious threat to their safety. Daniel uses a blunt tone to tell the reader that the Jews are isolated and depicted as inferior.

“Friedrich and I made a pact that we would photograph everything we could as a record of our ill treatment by our fellow Germans.”

While still in Frankfurt, Daniel sees photography as a symbol of evidence. He and his cousin promise to take pictures of the brutal antisemitism as a form of documentation. Already, Daniel is gathering proof and preparing for a trial.

“The uniform gave them power, respect, and freedom. It must have been terribly exciting. How easy for them to put on the uniform and with it all of Hitler’s ideas, forgetting any moral standards they might have had.”

After Daniel stops wearing the Hitler Youth uniform, he considers its symbolic value, and his thoughts reveal how the Nazis created conditions that made people—young or old—go along with their brutal, genocidal policies. Daniel recognizes their individuality—they have separate “moral standards”—but they can’t resist the allure of power, so they kick them to the side.

“But Mother made sure we packed our warm things and took along lots of food. Father took money along in case he needed to bribe anyone.”

The quote reveals the awareness of Daniel’s parents. Though Ruth can come across as emotional and stubborn, she’s as helpful as Joseph. She brings warm clothes and food, and Joseph brings money. Together, the parents help Daniel’s family survive.

“Sometimes, when it was winter in Frankfurt, I’d run out to do something with my friends, leaving my winter coat behind on purpose. It was the fashionable thing to do in our age group—coats were considered strictly for adults.”

The quote represents a type of juxtaposition. Daniel compares his juvenile preference for not wearing a coat in Frankfurt to needing warm clothes to stay alive in Lodz. Through the juxtaposition, the reader sees how Daniel goes from a carefree environment in Frankfurt to a life-or-death situation in Lodz.

“Many streets were made of mud, and you sank into it when you walked. The smell of all these people crammed together in such a small area with no sanitation was terrible. Over that winter, people died in the streets and lay unburied for days.”

Through imagery, Daniel relays the inhumane environment of Lodz. He vividly describes the smells, the lack of space, and the ongoing deaths. The inhumane ghetto is part of the Nazis’ genocidal policy. They can gas and shoot them, and they can kill them by forcing them to live in precarious spaces.

“I used to watch monkeys at the zoo do this and think it was funny. Maybe God is watching us and thinks this is funny too.”

Rosa compares seeing Daniel and his family delousing themselves to watching monkeys at the zoo, and she brings some humor to the tragic story. She also brings hope. If God is watching them, it means she still believes in God. At times, Daniel doubts his existence. The quote also showcases Rosa’s plucky, outspoken character.

“I sat beside Rosa, madly in love, and felt the music lift me out of the ghetto, beyond its cruel walls, to a place where the spirit was pure and free.”

Erika’s participation in the orchestra brings Daniel hope. His diction—the words he uses—reveal how the evening of Beethoven reminds him of the world beyond the inhumane ghetto. The concert also allows Daniel to restate his love for Rosa—his romantic interest.

“The father is horrible and greedy. He steals his children’s rations.”

Rosa tells Daniel about the family across from her and reveals how desperate the Nazis can make people—they can compel a dad to steal food from his kids. Conversely, many parents didn’t take from their children. To teach the dad a lesson, Rosa and Daniel team up and steal from him.

“Solidarity was our only hope. After all, what if the people in our kitchens tried to cheat us? Wouldn’t we want the support of workers in other factories?”

The conflict over the soup further demonstrates how not everyone in the ghetto tried to help one another. The people in the kitchen are in the same situation as the workers, yet they’re stealing their food. The diction—words like “solidarity” and “support”—emphasize togetherness. Rosa, Daniel, and Erika stick together and triumph over the sewing factory.

“We can despair and curse, and change nothing. We can choose evil like our enemies have done and create a world based on hate. Or we can try to make things better.”

Erika showcases her agency when she counters Daniel and Rosa’s wish to eradicate the human race. Through juxtaposition and diction, Erika compares the Nazis’ worldview to a holistic attitude and encourages Rosa and Daniel to adopt the latter. This quote also represents Daniel’s struggles later in the book when one part of him wants to kill in revenge while the other wants to seek civilized justice.

“I found out from a guard that the smoke is from bodies burning. But first they are taken into a huge room and then gas is thrown in and they choke to death.”

Through dialogue, Carol Matas reveals the main way the Nazis intend to kill all the Jews in Europe—gassing. Daniel’s dad tells him about the gas chambers, so he knows the source of the terrible smoke, and his innocence takes another hit. This dialogue allows Matas to explain the gas chamber to younger readers without writing a scene where Jews are gassed to death.

“I don’t have my pictures anymore. Still, I can make pictures in my head. I will do that. And I will go over them now and organize these pictures so that when the time comes to tell of what happened, I will tell it clearly.”

Daniel emphasizes the symbolic value of pictures—whether they’re literal photos or images in their mind. By capturing the inhumane scenes, Daniel collects evidence he can use against the Nazis and expose their genocidal cruelty to the world. In real life, photographic evidence and survivor testimonies helped show the world the truth of the Holocaust and bring many Nazis to justice.

“She looked pale and almost like a skeleton, and I could see she was coughing. I could also see that she’d given up.”

Daniel’s image of Erika shows the limits of the violin. It can symbolize hope, but in the wretched atmosphere of Auschwitz, where she thinks she’s the only family member still alive, the violin fails to remind her of her humanity or a better world. What once brought joy now only brings sadness and despair.

“A chill ran through me. I realized at once how dangerous this would be. And if something happened to me, who would look after Father?”

Adam wants Daniel to join the resistance, and Daniel uses diction—words like “chill” and “dangerous”—to convey the lethal risk. Daniel also shows how he and his dad are a team. Though he’s the child, he looks after his dad. It’s as if he’s not a child, or he’s not so innocent anymore.

“No, Daniel, her spirit. She was with you. I just know it. I could feel her sometimes late at night when you were crying out. She would soothe you and you would quiet down.”

Daniel’s dad creates a spiritual atmosphere through diction and imagery. He refers to Ruth’s spirit and describes how her spirit helped get Daniel through his battle with typhus. Intended to comfort his son, Joseph’s words inject a beneficial sense of mysticism and otherworldliness into the atrocious setting.

“Town folks looked right through us as if we didn’t exist. German civilians stood on the platforms, waiting for trains.”

Using imagery, Daniel shows dehumanization in the context of the death march. Civilians see them but act like they don’t exist. They carry on with their day, waiting for the trains. Through their indifference, they permit genocide. These people aren’t actively harming them, but they’re not doing anything to stop it.

“The Nazis had created a little paradise for themselves with grassy parks, beautiful lodges, even a zoological garden filled with pampered animals.”

Daniel uses juxtaposition to compare the luxurious spaces for the SS officers in Buchenwald to the inhumane environment of the prisoners. He also uses tragic irony. In a reversal of expectations, the animals in the garden get better treatment than the humans in the camp.

“The father kissed the children pleasantly when the pictures had been taken. The model father.”

Daniel shows the disturbing complexity of the Nazi character. A person can be a murderous Nazi and, at the same time, an ideal dad. Nazis aren’t otherworldly monsters: They’re people—people who participate in genocide.

“I see the children from the medical facilities, wandering in the grounds. Karl told me that all kinds of horrible experiments were done on them, and on adults, too. They all died eventually.”

With imagery, Daniel depicts the ghostly, haunted children. For the first time, he notes the horrendous medical experiments the Nazis performed on prisoners. Contrary to Daniel’s statement, not all the victims of the experiments died, but by adding this chilling detail, Matas provides a more complete depiction of Holocaust atrocities.

“Every live Nazi is one more we can put on trial.”

Daniel wants to kill the Nazi, but his dad talks him out of it. He helps his son resist the temptation to act like them and to seek justice through the court of law, which symbolizes a humane, enlightened form of justice in the story. Joseph knows that the trials will allow the world to see and understand what the Nazis did because they kept much of it hidden from the world.

“I’ll be there to testify at your trial.”

Daniel adopts a threatening tone for the SS officer/dad. With his mental and physical images, Daniel is confident he can bring justice to the officer and, presumably, the other Nazis.

“I reach into my inner pocket and put my hand on my gun. I had resolved at the camp never to be a victim again.”

Through his gun, Daniel takes control of the situation with the hateful Polish farm boys. He becomes the aggressor instead of the victim, defending himself and his friend from the vicious attack. The gun symbolizes power. In contemporary society, with gun violence a central issue for many people, such symbolism can be problematic.