77 pages • 2 hours read
Alan GratzPrisoner B-3087
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Dehumanization of the Jewish People
Dehumanization is the process by which a violent power group or person equates a minority group or person with animals or other nonhuman creatures. Repetitively using animalistic and demeaning language to describe the minority group causes other people in the majority group to view them as not human. Dehumanization is a tactic used by genocidal leaders like Adolf Hitler. Hitler referred to the Jewish people as rats, a description that made many people in the German majority look down on the Jewish people.
Prisoner B-3087 explores the implications of dehumanization and demonstrates that it’s a gradual process. When the Nazi soldiers first take over Kraków, the region is quickly isolated from the rest of Poland. The soldiers build impenetrable fences that prevent the Jewish people from leaving. This region becomes a ghetto. The Jewish people are stripped of their identities and forced to live crowded together in tiny apartments. Their previous professions are taken away, and they are forced to work for the Nazi soldiers without pay. Without the autonomy to choose their work or home or to buy food, they are stripped of their human rights and treated like animals.
This process of dehumanization becomes more defined as Yanek is taken from Kraków and sent to the concentration camps. He and the other Jewish prisoners are loaded onto train cars that are meant for shipping material goods. Without a place to sit, the prisoners are treated like cattle as they are crammed together and forced to stand without food or water. While in the concentration camps, the prisoners are forced to work without purpose or reward. Yanek realizes that he’s “an animal to them. A pack mule” (108). He has this same realization at the Buchenwald concentration camp. The Nazi guards established a zoo in the middle of the camp to entertain the Nazis’ families, and Yanek sees that the animals are treated better than the prisoners: While the prisoners are being starved and worked to death, the animals in the zoo always have plenty of food and shelter.
The dehumanization of the Jewish prisoners at the hands of the Nazi soldiers takes a toll on the prisoners’ morale. The constant demoralization that results from being treated like an animal makes many of the prisoners give up their will to live. This is seen in the Muselmanners. Yanek defines these prisoners as people who have given up hope: They aren’t just thin and sickly; they have no life left in their eyes. As the prisoners in the concentration camps are dehumanized by being shaven, dressed the same, starved, and murdered without reason, many prisoners come to feel that their lives aren’t worth living anymore. Yanek, however, uses the anger he feels from being dehumanized as motivation to survive.
The Desire to Survive
Yanek’s desire to survive is a constant thread that weaves his experiences together. Although he teeters between hope and despair as his circumstances grow increasingly dire, his desire to survive propels him forward. This desire is first ignited after he is orphaned. He realizes that his parents would want him to keep surviving, and his choice to not give up reflects his desire to honor his parents.
Uncle Moshe is a character who fuels Yanek’s will to survive. He tells Yanek, “Survive at all costs. […] We cannot let these monsters tear us from the pages of the world” (70). Yanek wants to survive not only to honor his parents but also to honor the Jewish people. If he dies, he lets the Nazis win. Surviving means beating the Nazis at their own game. He keeps this knowledge tucked away in his heart and pulls it out during the most trying times.
However, Uncle Moshe’s survival advice hinges upon remaining anonymous and isolated, to avoid attracting unwanted attention. This sparks internal conflict within Yanek, who yearns for friendship, believing such connections can kindle hope, which is essential to survival. Giving up hope means resigning to die. Connecting with other prisoners, like Fred, gives Yanek hope and makes him feel human.
Yanek’s resolute belief in his own humanity also propels him to survive. He knows that the Nazis view the Jewish as less than animals. When Yanek resolves to fight back, he does so by rejecting this dehumanization and asserting his humanity: “I will kick the Nazis in the shins. I will run. I won’t go like a sheep to the slaughter!” (109).
Another way Yanek affirms his own humanity is by caring for his body, his physical tether to life on earth. He recalls, “I would scrub my body […] every morning, no matter how cold it was, no matter how tired I was. I was alive, and I meant to stay that way” (136). Yanek knows good health is crucial to survive, but so is a belief in his worth as a person. And as this commitment to self-care becomes routine, it makes Yanek feel human. Feeling human provides him as much fuel to survive as hope, friendship, and health.
However, Yanek’s will to survive waxes and wanes with his circumstances. When he thinks he will die in the showers, he dares the Nazis to finally end his life. However, when he survives the ordeal, his will to survive is renewed. He knows that no matter what the Nazis do to him, he will still try to survive. All around him Muselmanners give up their desire to survive and succumb to the hopelessness of their situations. Yanek knows there is a fine line between surviving and becoming a Muselmanner, but remembering his family helps him walk the line.
Good Versus Evil
Yanek’s experience in the concentration camps reveals a clear binary between good and evil. The Nazi’s treatment of the prisoners is pure evil. The Nazi guards enjoy assaulting and murdering the prisoners for fun; they show the prisoners no mercy even when they have the chance. While Yanek easily defines the Nazi’s actions as evil, he has a difficult time defining good.
Yanek’s father told him that goodness is defined by the actions a man takes for his fellow man. However, Uncle Moshe put this wisdom in contrast to survival. Yanek sees that many men follow Uncle Moshe’s advice and act selfishly rather than collectively. He constantly feels divided by this idea. He wants to survive, but he realizes that if every prisoner worked together, they could all survive in unison rather than as individuals.
Yanek desires to be a good man. He commits small acts of kindness for his fellow prisoners, but he is also pulled by his will to survive. He realizes that his will to survive often overlaps with his conception of evil. When he helps the young boy walk during the death march, he is tempted to steal his bread after he loses his own. He instantly feels ashamed at his own selfishness and regrets that his circumstances have brought him so far from his definition of goodness.
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By Alan Gratz
