No Pretty Pictures

The apartment in the ghetto reinforces the theme of Constant Displacement and the Lack of Stability. Anita says, “[S]uitcases and bundles were stuffed under the bed. We might have walked into a waiting room in a railway station once again” (43). Anita and her family have to be ready to go. It’s as if they’re always waiting to go somewhere else—hopefully, away from danger. Because of this, Anita is stuck in a liminal state where she cannot become comfortable with her surroundings. Seeing Cousin Raisa, then, is a relief for her and prompts a flood of memories and semi-related thoughts. Through this experience, she’s able to find a brief respite from her situation. Cousin Raisa also connects to the theme of The Body and Societal Identity because Anita idolized her cousin for her beauty and aspired to be like her. Speaking bluntly, Anita says, “Raisa didn’t look as nice as she used to” (44)—she’s not so pretty anymore, and her less attractive appearance links to her now-stigmatized identity. Her hair is an embodiment of this; she once had long, beautiful braids, but because of the unsanitary conditions forced on Jews living in the ghettos, Raisa had to cut them off. Though it’s a small sacrifice compared to the later indignities and horrors of their experience, Raisa’s lost hair is another consequence of Jewish displacement.

Anita’s complex feelings about Christianity and Judaism are exemplified by her feelings of security associated with the Christian medals around her neck that she got from Niania. Niania is a source of comfort and security for Anita, so she begins to conflate Niania’s Catholicism with safety. The persecution that Anita faces leads her into a position where her beliefs are beginning to align with the beliefs of her persecutors: she associates her Judaism with danger and insecurity.

Using a blunt tone, Anita relays the unpleasantness of hiding from the raid. She says, “We lay there. A bunch of smelly Jewish strangers” (47). The bickering in the hiding spot—the Jews don’t want kids there, and someone takes the mom’s purse—shows how social relations deteriorated amongst Jews due to the life-or-death atmosphere. The raid links to the theme of displacement, as Anita, her brother, and her mom relocate to the tiny space. It also brings up Anita’s interest in bodies and death. She says her mom “looked like the corpse of an old woman we had known in the country” (48).

Anita uses imagery to convey the suspense of sneaking out of the ghetto. She details the bridge and the location of the Nazis to show their proximity to danger. Anita sees Niania and thinks of “the beautiful angel in the picture that had hung over our bed for the war” (52), so Niania and her religion continue to symbolize safety. The convent furthers Anita’s conflation of Christianity and safety. While Anita’s personal experiences bolster this correlation for her, this is another area where things aren’t so black and white. During the Holocaust, some Christian institutions tried to help Jews, some did nothing or very little, and some collaborated with Nazis.

Seeing Sister Ignacja naked reinforces Anita’s intrigue with bodies. She uses imagery to describe the nun washing her body, and the vivid language spotlights Anita’s intense gaze. Anita keeps the naked nun a secret from Krysia, whom she views somewhat suspiciously. Krysia and Anita are different in that Krysia is more reckless, but both girls are willful, bossy, and brash. Anita’s interactions with Krysia deepen her characterization, as the reader sees this new adventurous side to her.

When her mom yells at Niania for losing the jacket with the jewelry sewn in the lining, the motif of children versus adults reappears. Anita thinks her mom is wrong for yelling at Niania. She says, “I wanted to remind her that she had already brought us trouble” (63). Being a child, Anita doesn’t grasp that the jewelry hidden in the coat is meant to help her mother continue providing for her children, either through barter now or by providing a nest egg when the family is safe again. The motif of children versus adults is also present in Krysia’s illness and death. Anita notes that the carousel attendant lets them ride for free after Krysia begins coughing, likely because he is familiar with tuberculosis and knows that she is dying. By contrast, Anita isn’t upset when Krysia dies and thinks she could be “just pretending” (73). Anita indulges her fascination with bodies here and thinks in her blunt, cheeky tone that she “spen[t] the night in a room with a dead person” (73) for the first time.

The Nazis demonstrate their disregard for religion when they enter the convent and seize Anita, her brother, and the other Jews hiding there. The woman repeats “I can work. I can work” (77), alluding to the way many Jews believed work could save them. As Uncle Samuel shows, some Jews provided valuable labor in concentration camps. Ultimately, the Nazis didn’t want to use the Jews for cheap or free labor: They wanted them dead. The “I can work” mantra repeats throughout these chapters as things get worse, highlighting the theme of Suffering and Its Elusive Meaning; despite this woman’s desperation to prevent her deportation and death, her fate isn’t in her hands.

The trip to the prison furthers the theme of Constant Displacement and the Lack of Stability: Anita and her brother are in motion again. Now, Anita doesn’t want a body. She says, “I wanted to shrink away. To fold into a small invisible thing that had no detectable smell” (79). Anita doesn’t want an identity or to be part of this new space. On their way out of the prison, the brother thinks he sees one of their grandmas. It might not be their grandma, but if it is, Anita doesn’t want anything to do with her. She says, “I don’t want us to be connected to a Jewish relative. That would make everything worse for us when Niania came” (84). For Niania, Judaism continues to symbolize peril, and Niania represents protection.