"I thought of the countless refugees trekking toward freedom. How many millions of people had lost their home and family during the war?"
Due to the war, Joana left her home and was separated from her family. Here, she zooms out from her own life to reflect on the millions of refugees facing a similar situation. During World War II, millions of people from many different nations became refugees as Allied and Axis forces battled each other. This refugee crisis, and the refugees' attempt to escape to safety during Operation Hannibal, form the historical backdrop to Salt to the Sea. During Operation Hannibal, over two million Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, ethnic Germans, and residents of the East Prussian and Polish corridors were evacuated.
"I moved from body to body, treating blisters, wounds, frostbite. But I had no treatment for what plagued people most the most. Fear."
As they make a long and difficult trek, the refugees suffer many physical ailments. However, while Joana can cure the blisters, wounds, and frostbite of her fellow travelers, she has no treatment for their fear. Despite the physical troubles the refugees experience, fear is what ails them most. Throughout Salt to the Sea, Sepetys indicates that while war's physical impacts are terrible, it is often the psychological consequences of war that are the most permanent and difficult to deal with. While the characters may recover from their wounds, they will likely live with their trauma forever.
“The Nazis couldn’t stop the wind and the snow. The Russians couldn’t take the sun or the stars.”
In Salt to the Sea, nature often represents a power that is greater than the violence of war. As Emilia watches a heavy snow fall, she reflects that the fresh, white snow covers over the dark truth of the war. Even though the war has ravaged the landscape, war can never destroy or overpower nature. Both the Nazis and the Russians may go to war feeling they are all-powerful. But neither the Nazis nor the Russians can stop the natural elements from fulfilling their functions. Similarly, Emilia thinks that while the Nazis destroyed her school in Poland, they can never destroy her love for learning, which is part of her nature.
“What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?”
When Florian learns that Emilia is pregnant, he reflects on human nature and the nature of good and evil. He wonders if evil is part of human nature, or if war makes humans evil. This relates to the broader theme of good and evil in the novel. Nazi propaganda divided Germans into "good" and "bad" Germans. Yet the Nazi definition of good and bad was not based on authentic human values. Rather, they were about power and loyalty to Hitler's regime of power. Later, Florian reflects that in Nazi Germany, the labels "good" and "bad" are "applied in reverse."
"So it had happened. Evacuation orders had been issued. Germany was finally telling people what they should have said months ago. Run for your lives."
Right up until the very end of the war, Hitler insisted that the fighting continue. Even as it became increasingly clear that the Germans were losing the war, the Nazis cruelly refused to issue evacuation orders for the millions of people whose lives were in danger. In Salt to the Sea, this makes the journey more dangerous for the group of refugees, since their evacuation is considered illegal.
Florian's words speak to the denial and delusion of Hitler and Nazi Germany. For months, it was obvious that Germany was losing to the Allied Forces and that civilians should run for their lives. But for the Nazis, the pride of an imagined victory was more important than the lives of millions of civilians. They refused to issue evacuation orders until January of 1945.
“What a group we were. A pregnant girl in love, a kindly shoemaker, an orphan boy, a blind girl, and a giantess who complained that everyone was in her way when she herself took up the most room. And me, a lonely girl who missed her family and begged for a second chance.”
This playful quote from Joana highlights Sepetys's masterful characterization of the group of refugees in the novel. Each character has a strong identity that Sepetys develops through anecdotes about their hometowns, memories of their lives before the war, and information about their family dynamics. While Salt to the Sea is a work of historical fiction that tells the story of real historical events, it is also fundamentally a character-driven novel.
That Sepetys gives a full picture of each character—even unlikable ones like Alfred and Eva—is important to her claim that nothing in history is black and white. Sepetys develops complex characters who are often excluded from stories about World War II. Some of the thousands of people who died when the Wilhelm Gustloff sank were directly or indirectly complicit in Nazi Germany's violence. This contributed to the repression of the story about the tragic sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Yet many aboard the ship were civilians. And each of those who perished, regardless of their role, has a story that is worth remembering because it can teach us something important.
“The Wilhelm Gustloff was pregnant with lost souls conceived of war. They would crowd into her belly and she would give birth to their freedom. But did anyone realize? The ship was chistened for a man, Wilhelm Gustloff. My father had told me about him. He had been the leader of the Nazi Party in Switzerland. He was murdered. The ship was born of death.”
The Gustloff should represent life, since it is supposed to save the refugees by helping them to escape the war. However, Emilia feels that the ship was born of death, since it was named after Wilhelm Gustloff, a Nazi leader in Switzerland who was murdered. Emilia sees the ship as sterile and lifeless, a boat that is not made to appreciate the sea. Her sense that the ship is born of death foreshadows the tragic fate of the Gustloff.
Sepetys uses the metaphor of a pregnant ship that will give birth to draw a parallel with Emilia's pregnancy. Emilia gives birth on the ship. While giving birth should represent life, for Emilia it signifies death. She feels certain that she is doomed, and that she will die in childbirth just like her mother. Moreover, Emilia’s baby is the result of her rape by Russian soldiers. Therefore, giving birth forces Emilia to confront this traumatic experience and the shame it has left her with.
"Survival had its price: guilt."
Guilt is an important theme that Sepetys develops throughout the novel, particularly through Joana's character. Guilt torments Joana, who feels she is responsible for the likely death of her cousin Lina and other family members. While others see Joana as a kind and selfless mother figure, Joana sees herself as a murderer.
Here, Joana reflects that guilt is the price of surviving a tragic event. When a tragic event is over, survivors must deal with their own trauma. But often, they must also deal with guilt about the fact that they survived while others did not.
Joana is a survivor. She survived while other members of her family and other passengers on the Wilhelm Gustloff died. All she wants to do is help those around her. Yet as the Gustloff sinks she helpless in the face of such a terrible tragedy. All she can do is watch thousands of people die around her.
“Everything I ran with was in my pack—my papers, the forged documents, my notebook, and the swan. All the running, the hiding, the lies, the killing, for what? The endless circle of revenge: answering pain by inflicting pain. Why did I do it?”
Florian steals the key and map to the Amber Room to take revenge on Dr. Lange. He steals the amber swan to take revenge on Hitler. However, by the end of Salt to the Sea, Florian realizes that he is caught in a vicious cycle of revenge. He realizes that all of his lying and killing was in vain. In part, this is because he believes that both he and the amber swan will end up at the bottom of the Baltic Sea as the Wilhlem Gustloff ship sinks. Moreover, he realizes that responding to lies with more lies isn't good for anyone and only creates more pain. In the end, Florian reflects that revenge is a useless cycle, since it tries to answer pain by inflicting more pain. Through Florian’s character, Sepetys develops the theme of revenge in the novel.
"War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost."
Emilia died, just like more than nine thousand real people who were on board the Gustloff. But Sepetys ends Salt to the Sea insisting that while war breaks families into irretrievable pieces, "those who are gone are not necessarily lost." Emilia is physically gone, but her memory lives on. Florian, Joana, Klaus, and Halinka continue to be inspired by Emilia’s bravery. And Clara and Niels, the couple who find Emilia’s body on the Danish shore, bury Emilia by a small creek near a beautiful bed of roses. Emilia loves nature and surely would have been happy in this setting. Clara insists that she thinks of Emilia often, and that Emilia is safe and loved.
The quote relates to the broader theme of remembrance and history in the novel. Sepetys insists that it is important for us to preserve the memory of those who perished and to give a voice to the survivors of historical tragedies. Through remembrance, we can work to make sure that the tragedies of the past are not repeated.
