Summary
The locomotive with wounded soldiers enters the port and Joana helps Dr. Richter attend to them. Many of them will be dead within an hour. In the end, she identifies seventy-three soldiers who have a chance at survival and vows to get them onto the Gustloff to safety.
Joana says goodbye to the group and asks Alfred to ensure that they get on the same boat as her. Florian tells Joana his name and touches her hair romantically. The group follows Alfred to the port and he kicks a starving dog away with his boot. His behavior concerns Emilia.
Realizing that Alfred is stupid and self-important, Florian pulls him aside and shows him his special pass. He explains that he is on an important mission and worries that when he registers the soldiers may try to recruit him for other efforts. He asks for help with a discreet registration and promises to recommend Alfred to Koch and Hitler. Alfred reveals that he has extra boarding passes in his room and agrees to bring one to Florian later at the movie house.
Florian leaves and so does Eva, who is determined to retrieve her belongings. Alfred brings the rest of the group to the front of the line of refugees and says he has a special request from Dr. Richter to board them. Emilia feels uncomfortable stealing the Latvian woman’s identity, but the officers take her papers. She fakes going into labor.
Back at the movie house, Florian remembers how one night at the museum in Königsberg, a truck with armed guards delivered a painting to the museum. When he opened it, he realized it was a painting that was the property of Poland and treasured by the Poles. At that moment, he realized the Nazis were stealing the artistic treasures of Europe under the greedy direction of Koch. When he went home to Tilsit to seek his father’s advice, a neighbor told him he had arrived too late.
Joana meets the shoe poet and Klaus under the clock and learns that everyone in the group got boarding passes. Alfred brings a boarding pass to Florian, who must now figure out how to stamp it. Florian sends Alfred to look for Joana, who goes to visit him in the theater’s projector room. Florian asks to see Joana’s boarding pass, and she accuses him of only speaking to her when he needs something from her.
Analysis
At the Gotenhafen port, we see a stark contrast between the refugees and the Nazi Party officials. The refugees are starving, desperate, sick, and in pain. However, the wives of the Nazi officials wear expensive jewelry and have parlor maids. While the refugees show the terrible physical and emotional effects of war, outwardly, the Nazi officials and their families appear to be fine.
Similarly, even as the Nazis lose the war, they try to maintain their orderly systems. They make sure that the Nazi officials and their families have priority boarding and they meticulously inspect the remaining refugees. The Nazi party also continues to publish propaganda saying that Germany will win the war.
However, appearances are deceiving. Joana reminds the reader that the wounded soldiers who arrive at the port by locomotive represent the true fate of the Reich. The soldiers are injured beyond repair and many of them will be dead within an hour. They have suffered defeat, just as Nazi Germany will.
Thoughout Salt to the Sea, the romantic tension between Florian and Joana has been steadily building. In this block of sections, it reaches an important point: Florian finally reveals his name to Joana. This act continues to follow the same pattern as in earlier sections. On the one hand, he reveals something important about his identity because he wants something from Joana. But on the other hand, he potentially puts himself at risk in order to connect with Joana.
Sepetys characterizes Emilia as a deeply intuitive person who often recognizes the truth about people. She catches on to Florian and Joana’s romance before they are willing to admit it. She also predicted that Florian is deaf in one ear. And in this block of sections, she foreshadows that something dark lies beneath Alfred’s surface. In fact, after seeing Alfred kick a starving, helpless dog, she recalls how August’s mother, Erna Kleist, never welcomed her to the farm. In this way, she draws a connection between Alfred and Erna Kleist, as both subscribe to Hitler’s cruel, racist ideology.
It is increasingly clear that Alfred boasts of his superiority and hates those who appear weak because he himself is unpopular. His hands are covered in crusty, red blisters. He has no friends and others make fun of him. Alfred looks down on Emilia, describing her as weak and hormonal. However, he says that she is still “a fine specimen of the master race” and indicates that he will heroically protect her. Alfred subscribes to Hitler’s racist ideology to make himself feel stronger.
In Nazi Germany, people’s survival or death depended on their identities. As the characters in Salt to the Sea begin to see that the end of the war is in sight, they wonder what their identities will mean for them after the war, and whether they will be on the “right side” or the “wrong side.” Florian wonders what it will mean to be Prussian, since Prussia may no longer exist. Emilia wonders if she will be safe as a Polish woman in West Germany, and asks, “Which side would be the right side for a Pole?” And in a letter, Alfred’s mother tells him that when the war is over there will be a right side and a wrong side to land upon. She warns that the wrong side could have grave consequences.
