Summary
Alfred brings food to Florian at his hiding spot in the Gustloff’s fake chimney. Alfred is pleased that an important man like Florian has finally recognized his qualities. He tells Florian that Hitler’s wisdom has filled him with an indescribable command, and Florian thinks to himself that Alfred is a sociopath in training.
Alfred brings Joana to visit Florian, and when she arrives she slaps him. She tells him the Nazi inspector came to look for him and accuses Florian of unfairly putting them in great danger. Florian admits that he took the note Joana left at the Prussian manor house and forged her signature. He tries to explain his mission and motive. But Joana feels that none of it makes sense and she does not want to be implicated. She tells Florian that the inspector wired Koch’s office to confirm his mission. Florian is terrified and decides he will leave.
Meanwhile, the soldiers ask a group of naval women if they have seen a passenger who meets Florian’s description. Alfred is spying on the women and he offers to help. But both the women and the soldiers laugh at him, and the soldier tells him to get lost.
The Nazi inspector again visits Joana. He reveals that he has received a return message from Koch that reads: “Have Beck contact me directly. Tell DRL dead. Keys needed. Urgent.” Joana memorizes the message and takes it as proof that Florian wasn’t lying. The soldier says Florian seems to have disappeared and she repeats that he wanted to board the Hansa, which is currently departing.
The Gustloff finally departs. The ship faces a vicious snowstorm and is ten times over capacity. Through a seam in the chimney, Florian watches a horrifying and desperate scene unfold at the port. Mothers try hurling their infants to passengers on deck. They miss and dive into the water after their children. Around 50,000 refugees remain in Gotenhafen.
Florian worries that the Nazis will be waiting for him in Kiel and he asks Joana to cut his hair to help disguise his identity. Joana tells him about the message from Koch. She reveals that on the night she cured his shrapnel wound, in his delirium Florian told her that she was pretty and asked if she had a boyfriend. Joana also reveals why she feels that she is a murderer.
She explains that she feels responsible for her cousin Lina being sent to Siberia along with her family. Joana’s family was on Stalin’s list because her father joined an anti-Soviet group. When they fled Lithuania her father told her not to say anything to anyone. However, she disobeyed and wrote a letter to Lina explaining everything. She asked their cook to mail the letter, but instead the cook gave the letter to the Soviet’s secret police. The Soviet Police tracked down Lina’s family and sent them to Siberia. Two years ago, she learned that Lina’s father died after being tortured.
Analysis
In this part of the book, Alfred’s hateful tendencies, and especially his hatred toward women, come to the fore. While he is spying on the naval women, Alfred offers to help a group of soldiers find Florian. When the soldiers tell him to get lost, the women laugh at him. Suddenly he detests the women and describes them as disgusting and stupid. It becomes clear that his misogyny is a product of his own insecurity.
Alfred also reveals a vision of the world in which there are competing teams. He hints that Hannelore’s mother made an error of judgment by marrying her father, who is a member of the “opposing team.” When Alfred asked why she married him, she replied that she loves him. Alfred took this to be a very odd response because he does not understand love. Love does not fit into his hate-filled vision of the world.
In contrast, the shoe poet reflects on the importance of love, especially during wartime. He tells Florian that he couldn’t bear to give Klaus to the Red Cross when they arrive in Kiel. Instead, he will look for the address in Berlin that was pinned to Klaus’s coat. He reflects that just when you think the war has taken everything you loved, you meet someone and realize that somehow you still have more to give.
In this scene, the shoe poet reveals his name: Heinz. Just as when Florian revealed his name to Joana, the act represents a bonding moment that draws the characters closer. In this case, they connect over the power of love. Just as Heinz feels motivated by his love for Klaus, Florian feels motivated by his love for Joana.
In this part of the book, Joana and Florian’s relationship reaches a climax of tension. Joana slaps Florian, accusing him of implicating her in his lies and putting them both in danger. Florian replies that Joana has already put herself in just as much danger by sneaking a Polish girl into the maternity ward. Joana feels this is unfair, since Emilia is a victim in need of help.
Through Florian and Joana, Sepetys continues to develop the theme of the complicated nature of truth and lie. Joana wants to trust Florian, especially after he expertly helps Emilia to connect with her baby. Yet she is also concerned by his deceitful behavior, especially when he puts her in danger by saying that she is his personal nurse.
While Florian finds himself in a spiral of increasingly complicated lies, Joana is so set on telling the truth that sometimes it gets her in trouble. In this block of sections, we finally learn that Joana feels she is a murderer because her letter led the Russian secret police to send Lina to Siberia. Joana’s father told her not to share any information about their escape, but Joana couldn’t help but tell her cousin everything. Sepetys draws a parallel between Joana’s dangerous letter to Lina and the risky letter she left at the Prussian estate. Joana is so honest and trusting that it sometimes puts her in danger.
Meanwhile, an important symbol from Emilia’s hometown in Poland calls into question her fate: the burning, sinking wreath. Emilia recalls a village ritual in which each girl makes a wreath with flowers and candles. She then sends it floating down the river, and the boy who catches the wreath downstream is the boy she will marry. The year Emilia’s mother died, she made a wreath with her mother’s favorite herbs. She followed the wreath downstream and saw a candle topple. The whole thing lit on fire and sunk.
Emilia always took this symbol to mean that she is doomed. She is an orphan and is on the run for being Polish. She was raped by Russian soldiers. She was sure she would die in childbirth, just like her mother. But now Emilia begins to think that maybe the sign was wrong. She feels that when Florian saved her from the Russian soldier in the potato cellar, something changed. Perhaps he had pulled her burning wreath from the water. In fact, she points out that in Poland, Saint Florian is the fighter of fire.
For the first time in years, Emilia is surrounded by people who care about her and protect her. Just like Joana, she wonders if maybe the storm is finally behind her. The storm of war that the characters hope they are leaving behind contrasts with the snowstorm they experience, which makes their journey more difficult and foreshadows danger ahead.
