Point of View

The novel's point of view is told in first-person perspective, switching between Kasia, Caroline and Herta. Kasia, especially, proves to be an unreliable narrator. Her low-status as a prisoner makes Kasias first-person perspective often unreliable and confusing. She does not know what happened to her mother, so likewise, the reader does not know what happened to Kasia's mother. When Kasia's leg is operated on, she does not know what is happening to her, and neither does the reader. Both Kasia and the reader must wait for the details to be filled in from other sources.

Kasia's point of view often reflects her preoccupation with girlish, teenage concerns, reflecting the childhood that was stolen from her. When Kasia's hair is sheared upon her arrival at camp, she thinks: "Thank God Pietrik wasn't there to see that. How cold it was without hair!" (157). Even though Kasia has...