Summary
The narrator describes how he went to visit Preuss at his home in Berlin. When asked if he worked for Hardtloff, Preuss shows the narrator his certificate of denazification. Preuss then tells the narrator that Kirschbaum took poison in the car and says he can confirm it with Letzerich, the driver. He then explains the whole story. Preuss’s children say goodbye to the narrator, calling him Uncle. Preuss walks the narrator out. Before the two part ways, Preuss asks the narrator how he got his address. At this, the narrator lies and says he got it from the British secret service.
Chapter 32 returns to the main narrative, where is the day after Hardtloff’s death. The workers at the freight yard have found out about Hardtloff’s death through Roman, who overheard a conversation between sentries. Jacob thinks about how he wishes he could have broken the news, as this would have given his radio more credence. People ask Jacob about the radio while they wait in line for lunch. They learn from an officer that there is no lunch today. Jacob goes to an empty railcar, and people join him to hear about the radio’s reports. Jacob realizes what happened with Hardtloff and tells the crowd that Kirschbaum has died as a result of Hardtloff’s death. The lunch break ends.
A wagon drawn by horses arrives while the men are working. According to the narrator, this wagon shows up roughly every three months to empty the outhouse. It is driven by a farmer who has been forbidden from speaking to the Jews. Schmidt, Jacob, and two strangers are picked to help with the outhouse today. Jacob and Schmidt shovel the muck into buckets while the other two empty the buckets into a tank.
The farmer unwraps and eats a sandwich while the men work. When one of the strangers asks the farmer to drop a little bit of the sandwich for him, the man considers it but puts away his food without dropping any. Just before the men are going to switch jobs, Schmidt becomes exhausted and begins to see black spots appear before his eyes. Though Schmidt is sick, he tries to keep working. In an effort to keep Schmidt going, Jacob tells the lawyer that he heard an interview with Churchill. Jacob tells Schmidt the story he had previously told Lina, albeit a modified version to account for Schmidt’s level of education.
Mischa notices a group of people talking excitedly while on the way to work. He hears that they are talking about Franziskaner-Strasse, where Rosa lives. A man tells Mischa that the residents of the street are being lined up and taken away. Mischa runs to Rosa’s factory, intending to prevent her from going home after she gets out of work. He asks a girl who emerges from the factory about Rosa and is told that she was already sent home. He runs to catch her. On the way back to Franziskaner-Strasse, Mischa sees Rosa ahead of him and intercepts her. He brings her back to his home without telling Rosa why they are not going back to hers. Mischa also lies and says that he too was given the day off work.
Rosa tells Mischa that the name of the girl he met at the factory is Larissa, and her boyfriend is Josef Neidorf (the radio repairman who Kowalski had previously enlisted to fix Jacob’s radio). Rosa wonders if the advance of the Russians may be why they both got off work. Mischa leaves Rosa at his place and goes to the shop with his ration card. He cashes in all of his food coupons, telling the shop owner, Rosenek, that he has a guest.
Through the window, Mischa and Rosa watch a procession of people who have been deported walking, and Mischa says he does not know which street they come from. Rosa keeps watching until she realizes the people come from Franziskaner-Strasse. Mischa pulls Rosa away from the window before she sees her parents, and the two struggle until the procession passes. Rosa accuses Mischa of lying to her and knowing in advance that the deportations were occurring. Micha lies and says he did not see Rosa’s parents among the people walking. They argue, and Rosa eventually relents. Mischa begins to clear out Isaak Fayngold’s side of the room again, as Rosa will have to live with him now.
Mischa asks Jacob if he knows anything about the deportations while they walk home from the freight yard. At least five men have been missing from work since the day of the Franziskaner-Strasse deportations. Jacob asks how things are going with Rosa and if she and Mischa have enough food, as Rosa cannot get any more ration cards because she was supposed to have been deported. Mischa says he is no longer optimistic about the arrival of the Russians, but Jacob says the deportations mean the Germans are panicking. According to Jacob, the Russians must really be close if the Germans are moving people out of the ghetto.
Chapter 35
Rosa, who now feels trapped in Mischa’s room, decides one day to leave it. She walks to her old home on Franziskaner-Strasse, where the street is very empty. Rosa looks into some homes and rooms and sees through one window a boy of about fourteen looting an abandoned home. The boy is surprised when he sees Rosa, but he grins after seeing the yellow star on her chest.
At her own home, Rosa can tell that no looters have broken in. She checks to see if her mother left a note but is unable to find one. Rosa looks around, taking her ration card and a briefcase containing clothes and a winter coat. She leaves her key in the door on the way out.
Next, Rosa goes to see Jacob, whom she does not know personally. She wants to understand how to reconcile the reports of Russian military progress with the deportations. It occurs to Rosa that Jacob may be lying about his radio. While Rosa is standing outside Jacob’s door, Lina walks up from the street and invites her inside. Both have heard of the other person, though they have never met. Lina prods Rosa about why she is at Jacob’s place, tacitly asking if she has come to hear news from the radio. Rosa says she doesn’t believe in the radio. Lina is offended on behalf of Jacob, and she begins to defend him and recount her experience with the radio. Suddenly, Rosa sees Jacob standing in the doorway. She gets up and leaves.
Outside, Rosa sees Jews fleeing and a van with a uniformed man standing on its running board. She runs back into Jacob’s building. Two men come into the hallway in which Rosa and an old man are standing. The men approach Rosa and the other man, but when it becomes clear to the Germans that Rosa and the man are not who they are looking for, they tell them to leave. Rosa and the other man run across the street into another building, where Rosa tells the people there that the Germans have come for Jacob. They discuss this. But then a young man watching the Germans through the keyhole reports that they are bringing out a woman—it is Elisa Kirschbaum. The narrator tells us she is paying the price for her brother’s crime. We learn that Jacob had suggested she go into hiding, but she had refused. As Elisa is about to step into the car, it moves, causing her to fall. The Germans grin at this. Elisa gets up and climbs into the car after it turns around. The car drives away, and the people who had ducked into buildings go back outside.
Jacob’s radio is now reporting that the Red Army has made it to outskirts of Pry, a town only eighty-seven miles from the ghetto. We learn of an argument between Kowalski and his roommate Abraham about how far the Russians have advanced. Contrary to what Jacob’s radio claims, Abraham claims the Russians have made it past Pry. Abraham suggests there may be a different radio informing the worker at the brickyard, where he works. Kowalski is offended and defends Jacob, but Abraham sticks to his position.
Kowalski goes to visit Jacob just after Elisa is taken away. Jacob feels weak due to Elisa’s arrest and Rosa’s visit to his home. He begins to think he was too enthusiastic about letting the Russians get so close to the ghetto in his radio reports. However, he soon starts to feel better and sits at the table with Kowalski.
Jacob recalls the time when he had a broken leg and had to stay in bed for a couple of days. This was the only time he could not work due to illness. Jacob asks Kowalski not to leave. Then, he asks Kowalski how much a person can endure, as he thinks he has reached his limit and cannot go on. Kowalski thinks about how Jacob has always made him feel better in the past. Jacob confesses that he does not have a radio. At this, Kowalski smiles, “although his eyes smile less than his mouth.” Kowalski says he understands Jacob—he thinks that Jacob is now lying about not having a radio. Jacob now realizes that the lies have gotten out of control. Kowalski leaves, winking at Jacob as he goes.
Analysis
Preuss's family life is a particularly brutal reminder of the cruelties inflicted on the Jews during the Holocaust. Many of the people in the ghetto, not to mention the Jews beyond the ghetto, lost their families at some point during the war. For example, later in this section Rosa is forced to watch her family be separated through Mischa's window. Yet Preuss, who was one of the people inflicting this pain on others, gets to have his family together after the war. Becker, who himself lost much of his family, including his mother, in concentration camps, must have wanted the reader to understand that even after the war was over, the pain persisted.
Next, the farmer who drives the tank wagon stands out in the text for his strangeness. He is best understood as a case study for how oppression starts and spreads. Either out of genuine antipathy or fear of the Nazis, the farmer refuses to speak to the Jews. He also refuses to give one of the workers some of his food even though the ghetto officials would likely not notice or not punish him for doing so, as it could be explained away as an accident. In making these choices, the farmer participates in and even furthers the domination of the Nazi Party. Thus, Becker seems to be using the farmer to point to the implicit or explicit contribution of bystanders to oppression.
Mischa's lies to Rosa, which convince her that he is not intercepting her for any particular reason, are another example of the moral ambiguity with which this novel is obsessed. Becker wants us to consider the righteousness of Mischa's lies: do the lies prevent Rosa from certain doom? Does Rosa have the right to know what is happening to her family? There are no correct answers to these questions. Ultimately, Mischa lies for a similar reason to Jacob—to save others—but Rosa is not given a choice in the matter, which some might argue she deserves.
Elisa's arrest is an example of situational irony—essentially a plot twist—because the reader logically expects Jacob to be arrested, and Elisa has committed no crime. The tension between the expected event and what actually occurs serves to emphasize the absurdity of the Nazi order, one of the main themes of the novel. Additionally, when the Germans prank Elisa, causing her to fall down, it reveals the infectious malice inherent within Nazism. Young Germans are taught to hate the Jews. As we see here, this strategy seems to work.
Kowalski's visit to Jacob and his reaction to the latter's confession foreshadow Kowalski's fate, though it is not immediately obvious upon first read. We know from Kowalski's earlier characterization that his face often reveals what he is thinking. Yet, in response to Jacob's confession, "Kowalski looks straight through him and sits there like a pillar of salt." This suggests that the news has profoundly affected Kowalski. Then, even when Kowalski smiles "his eyes smile less than his mouth," a piece of imagery contributing to the idea that deep down Kowalski is strong affected. This all being true, it is also true that Kowalski seems to be sincere in believing that Jacob is lying about his radio being broken. One way to reconcile these ideas is to imagine that Kowalski's disbelief of Jacob is a defense mechanism against the loss of hope. At some point that night, the defense mechanism must have collapsed.
