What do weeds represent?

Weeds represent the undesirable people that encroach upon and choke out the goodness in other people's lives. The author uses this reference twice in the novel in two separate incidents. First, Trudel refers to the Nazis as the weeds that are encroaching on the German people, spreading their hateful and unjust ideas and sending millions to their death. Someone in the resistance had explained to her that those who try to stop the Nazis are like good seeds in a field of weeds, doing their best and spreading their influence so that the weeds do not choke everything else out of existence (32). Secondly, Eva Kluge dreams of her plans for a new life in the country. She sees herself hoeing in the fields and pulling up weeds from among a healthy crop. The weeds serve here as a metaphor for the troublesome men in her past who have caused her nothing but heartache; she is rooting them out of her life and moving on.