No Pretty Pictures

While adult Lobel knows the concentration camp is Plaszow, the child Anita doesn’t. She asks, “Is that where we were? In Plaszow?” (86). Anita’s lack of concrete information reinforces the split between the adult Lobel and her child self. Anita isn’t sure where she is, and by separating what Lobel knows now from what Anita knew then, Lobel provides a realistic, in-the-moment depiction of Anita’s ordeal. To a degree, this puts the reader in her mindset: The reader only knows as much as Anita.

Later, it becomes clearer that Anita is at the Plaszow concentration camp. As the term implies, concentration camps are a concentration of detained people in a closed-off area. The United States concentrated Indigenous peoples in camps, and the British concentrated the Boer peoples in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Thus, the Nazis didn’t invent concentration camps, but the term has become inextricably linked to Nazism, so it can be controversial to apply the term to other forms of oppression.

The Nazis had different kinds of concentration camps. Plaszow was a labor camp. There were also transit camps, where Nazis kept prisoners before sending them elsewhere, and there were death camps, with gas chambers. Regardless of the kind of camp, Jews were in jeopardy, and Nazis could kill them anywhere. For example, they execute the mom’s teen son, and other people with him, at the labor camp. The Constant Displacement and the Lack of Stability endured by Anita and other Jews are evident in the shuttling between locations and types of camps with no real hope of safety anywhere. This instability led to infighting as well, with the mother of the murdered boy screaming that Anita’s brother should have died instead. Anita says, “She frightened us more than the Nazis did” (88); the woman’s piercing emotions are scarier to her in this moment than the unfeeling Nazis. At other times, like at roll call, Anita fears the Nazis acutely: “Nothing stopped Nazis from shooting. Don’t stand out! Don’t be noticed! I prayed” (90). Anita’s body and the identity attached to it put her in danger, so she wants to minimize it.

The scene with the unnamed man helps create a purposefully puzzling tone in these chapters. While adult Lobel has some idea of who he is, his presence perplexes Anita. The giggles and whispers between him and Raisa make it seem like they’re flirting and have a romantic relationship. Prisoners often formed romantic bonds with guards or Nazis to get special treatment, and Anita and her family receive food and an indoor bathroom in exchange for Raisa’s flirtations. At the same time, Raisa bathes Anita in front of the man. He watches her, but it’s not like how Anita watched the nun; this is predatory and reinforces the menacing identity of Nazis and their associates. This relationship adds a new dimension to the theme of The Body and Societal Identity, where Anita’s nakedness reinforces her vulnerability as a female Jewish prisoner.

Displacement occurs repeatedly when the Nazis force the prisoners to travel between camps. The tone remains unknowing, as child Anita isn’t sure what’s going on or where they’re heading. Again, the reader shares in Anita’s confusion. In one scene, Anita is in what’s called the death march. As the war approached its final days in 1945, the Nazis led prisoners to camps and places further away from approaching Allied soldiers. As the name implies, the marches were deadly, and the violence Anita observes underscores the perilous conditions. She doesn’t say a Nazi killed the woman or use terms like “blood.” Instead, she describes a “large stain […] coloring the snow red” (99). Through imagery, Anita forces the reader to look at death, not just gloss over the word. Even on the death march, Jews continue to symbolize danger and suspicion for Anita. She doesn’t obey her aunt and cousin: She refuses to “step out” (96). Again, there’s a difference here between adult Lobel and child Anita. The latter doesn’t know their plan is legitimate, and neither does the reader.

There is a sign in front of Auschwitz that reads, “Work makes one free” (100), and the sign deceives the Jews, like the woman in Chapter 12, and makes them think labor is a path to liberation. In This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, author Tadeusz Borowski turns his experience of the camps into short stories (Borowski, Tadeusz. This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. Translated by Barbara Vedder, Penguin, 1976). He writes, “It is the camp law: People going to their deaths must be deceived until the very end” (37). This duplicity might be why Anita often relies on imagery—it’s more accurate than terminology.

Neither the death march nor the concentration camps extinguish Anita’s appreciation for beauty. Again, she subverts the title through her descriptions: There are pretty pictures, even in the darkest times. On the death march, Anita looks at the sky and says to her brother, “How beautiful this is” (98), awed by the stars. As they leave Auschwitz, she observes the “rosy and gold sky” (103). The pretty images collide with the disturbing images of hunger, excrement, death, and sickness. Anita’s portrait of the death march and the concentration camps is messy and paradoxical—it’s not straightforward, simple, or pretty. In the aftermath of the march, Marina takes on the caretaker role until Allied soldiers arrive. Anita doesn’t specify the country of the soldiers, but they’re Russian soldiers—the Soviet Union liberated the Ravensbrück camp. Now, Anita and her brother are on the move again: They’re going to Sweden, a symbolic change of place that represents a new chance at life.