Bread

Bread is a potent symbol throughout the novel, established early by the author from the time Yanek and his family spend in the ghetto and sustained through each and every camp, death march, and work site he experiences. Though the significance of bread in the novel can be interpreted in different ways, it is above all a double-edged symbol representing both survival and control. In the first respect, bread is sustenance; in order to live through each week, the prisoners must eat. The author focuses significant swathes of the text on describing bread and how precious and crucial it is in Yanek’s new and degraded life. At the beginning of the novel, Yanek and his dead sneak out in the middle of the night through the streets of the ghetto to bake bread with Uncle Abraham and his wife, defying the control of the Nazis...