But the men with dark skin don't say who they are. They don't eat, they don't drink, they don't say who they are. They simply are. The silence of these men who would rather die than reveal their identity unites with the waiting of all these other others who want their questions answered to produce a great silence in the middle of the square called Alexanderplatz in Berlin.
-- Richard (chapter 1)

Importance: This quote encapsulates one of the novel’s central themes: the tension between visibility and invisibility in the context of migration. The repetition of "they don’t say who they are" highlights both the refugees’ precarious existence and their resistance to a system that demands they surrender their identities in exchange for recognition. Their silence is an act of defiance, a refusal to be reduced to bureaucratic categories that erase the complexities of their histories. Yet, Erpenbeck juxtaposes this silence with the...