Refugee

Content warning: This novel discusses the Holocaust, war, suicide, and violent war crimes.

“Mahmoud Bishara was invisible, and that’s exactly how he wanted it. Being invisible was how he survived.”

The factions in Mahmoud’s native Syria make him come to this conclusion. He only manages to survive by staying off everyone’s radar. This establishes his internal conflict; much later in the story, he learns that visibility has its benefits, too.

“Wearing that uniform turned boys into monsters. Josef had seen it happen.”

Josef is talking about the Hitler Youth movement. Gratz uses childhood vocabulary of “boys” and “monsters” to filter these political ideas through a child’s perspective and highlight Josef’s innocence in this context. This statement also draws a comparison with other kinds of uniforms in the text: those of the Brownshirts, Cuban policemen, and Hungarian border guards.

“He hated that man. Hated him because of everything he’d done to the Jews, but mostly because of what Hitler had done to his father.”

The purpose of each of the plotlines is to imbue three political contexts with individuality to provoke a subjective response. This passage exemplifies that purpose since Josef makes his political context personal by talking about his father.