Someone Named Eva

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2007

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-7

Chapters 8-10

Chapters 11-14

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Loss and Rediscovery of Identity During Nazi Occupation

Identity is one of the most important themes in Someone Named Eva. The story centers around 11-year-old Milada, whose identity and sense of self is based on microcosms like her family heritage as well as her small Czech community. To Milada, important self-identifying markers include her name, which she shares with her grandmother and great-grandmother, and being the fastest runner in her class. Milada is only beginning to figure out her individuality and faces a unique challenge: She is coming of age during the Nazi occupation of her home country, Czechoslovakia. A recurring quote from Babichka summarizes Milada’s challenge throughout the story: “Remember who you are, Milada. Remember where you are from. Always” (19).

Milada’s identity is challenged by internal and external forces throughout the story, primarily by Fräulein Krüger at the German facility. In an attempt to reprogram the girls to become German citizens, Fräulein Krüger renames the girls and forces them to speak only German. Milada tries to resist, but the name “Eva” and the German language become more familiar to her. While at the facility, Milada has two people living inside of her, Milada and Eva.

I was learning to tuck away pieces of my real self: the girl from Czechoslovakia that has a family waiting for her. I was learning to put that girl in a box during the day, safe and secure, until just before going to sleep at night. Then I could take the real girl out in the darkness and examine her more closely (47).

As time goes on, there are many moments when Milada realizes she cannot remember her given name or pieces of her original language. Eventually, she even comes to value her Aryan characteristics and considers herself valuable to the Werner family and Germany: “I realized how much worth I had added to this family and [felt] important somehow” (90).

Just as Milada begins to accept her identity as a German child and feel at home with her adopted family, she discovers the women’s concentration camp in the woods and hears the Czech national anthem. Now, the identity she had buried within herself rises to the surface, and she is conflicted again: “Who had I become? A German girl who gave the Hitler salute at dinner without even thinking?” (98). After seeing her own people suffering, Milada cannot pretend she is a normal German girl. When Elsbeth accuses Milada of being a Jew, the hatred Milada had kept bottled up explodes, and she fights Elsbeth. Even after the girls make up and the war ends, Milada feels as if she “belonged nowhere and to no one” (115).

Milada’s true identity is not really solid until she is reunited with her mother and the two of them return to Lidice, but it begins to emerge the moment someone other than herself says her name. When the American woman asks her if she is Milada, Milada suddenly remembers that she is a Czech girl, the fastest runner in her class, the friend of Terezie, the daughter of her own Papa and Mama, sister to Jaro and Anechka, and granddaughter of Babichka. Once she is reunited with her mother, Milada works hard to regain the parts of herself that she lost. She starts taking lessons in Czech and eventually talks about what happened to the rest of their family with her mother. Milada and Mama return to Lidice together, and Milada now openly wears Babichka’s pin on her collar as a symbol of hope; she need not hide her identity anymore. When Milada looks at the stars over her leveled hometown, she confidently tells her Babichka that she remembers who she is and has found her way home.

The Power of Family

Family is another important theme in Someone Named Eva. The first two chapters show how deeply Milada’s identity and understanding of the world is based on her family. The Kraliceks makes Milada feel happy, loved, and safe. For example, at Milada’s birthday party, her parents gift her a telescope and bake her a dessert despite limited rations and money. Milada values her time with Babichka and innocently believes her father when he says that the Nazis will leave soon. For Milada, her family is her world.

Therefore, Milada is deeply disturbed when the Nazis take away and separate her family. While at the training facility, most of Milada’s thoughts gravitate back to her family: where they are and when they will come and get her. She firmly believes that her family will come for her until the moment she is adopted into the Werner family. Although Milada’s hope wavers, Babichka’s pin—a physical reminder of her family—serves as the tether that keeps Milada’s memories alive.

The Werner family provides a telling contrast to Milada’s Czech family. The families are similar in that there is a father, mother, single son, and two daughters. Some of the relationships are similar, like the relationship between Milada and her teasing older brother, Jaro, and Elsbeth and her annoying younger brother, Peter. Both sets of siblings fight and tease one another but love each other deeply. However, the relationship between Milada’s Mama and Papa is vastly different from the relationship between Herr and Frau Werner. When Mama and Papa are separated, it is forced, and they fight to stay together:

The other guard grabbed Papa roughly and pulled him from Mama. I watched as Mama’s and Papa’s intertwined hands stretched and stretched, until at last they had to let go and Papa, his eyes filled with tears, was pulled away from Mama.

‘I love you, Antonin!’ Mama cried.

‘I love you, Jana!’ Papa’s voice cracked (20).

However, when Frau and Herr Werner separate, it is of Herr Werner’s free will. When he goes into hiding, he decides to leave his wife and daughters behind, emptily promising that he will return for them. When Frau begs him to stay, he slaps her. This provides a stark contrast between Milada’s biological and adopted parents and the tone of life in each of those families.

Family also provides a place of belonging and grounds one’s sense of self. Milada’s family grounded her in her Czech identity, and she was able to maintain her sense of self at the facility because of this and Babichka’s pin. However, when Milada began to assimilate into the Werner family, she looked for that same foundation in Frau Werner and Elsbeth.

She pulled me into her lap, whispering and rocking me gently. I let her hold me, feeling ashamed. She was a Nazi. She was the enemy. She had invaded my land and taken me from my home. And yet she was a woman, my new mother, there to comfort and hold me. I couldn’t help but feel safe and protected in her arms (71).

This quote demonstrates just how important it is for a child to have a sense of stability within a family, and how desperately Milada longed for safety and security. Milada is pleased when Elsbeth calls Milada “her sister” for the first time. Similarly, Milada feels pride at her adoption party when she realizes that she has added value to the Werner family. Family is at the core of Milada’s being. She seeks to fill that void however she can, yet she never fully forgets her own Czech family.

Milada’s determination to remember her family and home throughout the story demonstrates her strong connection to them. Even though she has found a safe, stable place with the Werners, she does not feel like she belongs with them. When Milada has the opportunity to be reunited with her mother, she leaves without even saying goodbye to Frau Werner and Elsbeth. The Power of Family dictates Milada’s thoughts and actions, and she doesn’t feel fully herself until she is reunited with her mother. Although half of their family is gone and murdered, Milada still has the comfort, love, and security of her mother’s arms. Milada’s narrative finds a happy resolution in this reunion.

The Effects of Germanization on Children

Another overarching theme is indoctrination and the effects of Germanization on children. The moment Milada is taken from her family, she is indoctrinated with Nazi propaganda. In the facility, the girls awake to the sound of the German national anthem. Their only source of information is from Fräulein Krüger, who use lies and coercion to make them abide with Nazism. Milada clearly remembers Nazi soldiers taking her and her family from their home, yet Fräulein Krüger contradictorily tells the girls that their families were killed in an Allied air raid. Fräulein Krüger maintains that the girls have been “chosen as Aryan children, sent by God to serve Hitler and save the word from Jewish scourge” (36). The girls are then renamed as Germans and forced to abandon their own language, identities, and culture.

Milada tries to resist the propaganda, but it is the only information she receives for nearly two years. Their first months at the facility focus on learning German, and the girls are punished if they speak any other language. Then, they are taught German history, home economics, and Nazi ideology regarding Aryan superiority. The girls are forced to watch convincing propaganda films, yet Milada retains her suspicion of the Nazis and their intent.

The indoctrination affects other children, including Milada’s Polish friend, Liesel. Liesel agrees that much of what the girls are taught is not true, yet she has trouble believing her own memory of her mother. Liesel remembers the day she was taken from her mother and questions whether Fräulein Krüger told her the truth—that her mother couldn’t afford her anymore. Similarly, Milada begins to forget her real name and Czech language because she is forced to speak in strictly German. Milada even internalizes German traditions and manners, like saluting Hitler as an apology to her family after breaking protocol at dinner.

Once outside of the facility, Milada is still inundated with German beliefs. In the Werner household, Milada is exposed to luxury she has never experienced before. She eats full meals, bathes in warm water, has two rooms all to herself, and has beautiful clothes to wear. These amenities are credited to Herr Werner’s job as a high-ranking Nazi officer. Milada enjoys the luxury but cannot reconcile herself to the source of the family’s wealth. The Werners have many photos of Hitler throughout the house, and Milada and Elsbeth are still educated according to the German curriculums. As time goes on, Milada begins to accept her role as a German child and enjoy her place in the Werner family, realizing she had “genuinely come to care for them both” (83).

However, when Milada has the opportunity to reunite with Mama, she quickly leaves the Werners without so much as a goodbye. This action suggests that despite the rigorous German training and the cultivation of a new German family, Milada is strong enough to overcome conditioning. The novel explores how indoctrination affects one’s sense of self and reality. While children like Franziska embrace Germanization, Milada works hard to remember herself and her home. In the end, she completely rejects her German training and commits herself to reclaiming her Czech language and culture. She desires to never speak German again.