Summary
Joana brings Emilia on board the Gustloff’s maternity ward and Dr. Richter says he will find a Latvian speaker. She is terrified because she does not really speak Latvian. She does not want to be on board the Gustloff. She says the ship was born of death, since it is named after a leader of the Nazi Party in Switzerland who was murdered. She also remembers how Erna Kleist mistreated her because she believed in a master race and thought Emilia was inferior for being Polish.
Joana is told to clean up. Looking in the mirror, she finally sees the toll that war has taken on her. Alone and unseen, she finally feels the weight of all of the terrible things she has experienced. She reflects that guilt is the price of survival, and healing and helping others distracts her. She wonders about the fate of Lithuania and fears for her cousin Lina.
Florian forges the stamp on his boarding pass by studying Emilia’s and Joana’s passes. He thinks about how the Amber Room is the greatest treasure among Hitler’s stolen art. Surely, Hitler will look for the swan first. Only Lange and Florian know where the secret cellar filled with the contents of the Amber Room are, and only Florian has the map and the key to the room, hidden in the hollow heel of his boot.
Alfred walks around quickly to avoid being assigned tasks rather than collecting life vests and floats. He goes to the infirmary to spy on Joana and arrives as Emilia is going into labor. He is in shock and Joana tells him to find Dr. Richter. In labor, Emilia remembers how her mother died in childbirth, and she thinks the same will happen to her. She is also consumed with terror and pain. She screams “liar” and calls out for her mother’s help. She tells Joana that there is no August. Finally, her baby girl is born.
Emilia reveals that she was raped by Russian soldiers. The soldiers arrived at the Kleist’s farm and wanted to take Else, the Kleist’s daughter. But Mrs. Kleist negotiated with them, offering up Emilia instead. The soldiers raped Emilia in a cold cellar. While August does exist and helped Emilia, there was never anything between them. She invented the story to make the situation easier to deal with.
Florian brings the poet and Klaus up to the projector room of the movie house to sleep. They realize they will all be on board the Gustloff. The following day, the three approach the ship and they encounter a shoving mob. Someone wants to buy Klaus, because only people accompanying children are allowed on board. As artillery shells rumble in the distance, they hear rumors about the war: that a German submarine sunk a ship and drowned thousands of American soldiers, and that Russian planes dropped phosphorous on a mass of refugees.
Florian reveals that his father was hanged in Berlin for making maps for the men who attempted to assassinate Hitler. According to the Nazis, this means that Florian has sippenhaft, or blood guilt, meaning that he can be persecuted for his father’s crimes.
Analysis
The Gustloff is a Kraft durch Freude (KdF) ship, which in German means “Strength Through Joy.” KdF was a national German organization intended to make leisure activities accessible to the masses. Emilia points out the irony of the ship. While Hitler said the KdF brought opportunity for everyone and that all were equal, the Nazi regime viewed some people as superior and others as inferior. They favored some and persecuted others.
Just as the Gustloff was marked by inequality when it served as a vacation boat, it is marked by inequality during the naval evacuation. Nazi officials, along with German soldiers and citizens, have priority for boarding, since the Nazis see them as more worthy of saving than the other refugees. In this way, the Gustloff comes to represent the hypocrisy and contradictions of the Reich.
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.
Emilia says the ship is pregnant with the lost souls conceived of war. They hope the ship will give birth to their freedom, yet they do not realize that the ship is born of death. In this way, Sepetys uses the metaphor of a ship giving 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. She can no longer keep telling the story she made up in order to make things easier for herself. Rather, she tells the truth and tries to clear her conscience.
As the narrators board the ship, they seem to be hit by the full weight of their traumatic experiences. Sepetys expresses this idea through the metaphor of the locked door. Each character has a locked door in their minds, behind which they hide their traumas and secrets. As Emilia gives birth, the locked door in her mind opens. She recalls her mother’s death and her own rape.
When Joana finally has a moment to herself, she must also confront everything that she has been avoiding. She goes to the bathroom to wash away the dirt that covers her. But she feels she will never be able to wash away the guilt and remorse that she feels for abandoning her family. Joana feels the weight of all the terrible things she has experienced during four years of war. She admits that she heals and helps others in order to distract herself from her own pain. She does not want to have to always be the strong one or the smart one. In private, she finally lets out all of her sadness and cries.
