Parallel Journeys

“Soon, even our parents became afraid of us. Never in the history of the world has such power been wielded by teenagers.”

Alfons brings in the theme of Power Versus Helplessness. The parents of Hitler Youth members are helpless. They’re afraid of their kids. If they criticize them, their kids could get them in serious trouble.

“He was thirty-two, I was sixteen and absolutely not interested in this old man, so I behaved in an obnoxious manner.”

Helen demonstrates her power by resisting her mom’s attempt to get to marry the older man. The scene with the man foreshadows or previews how she can use her formidable, independent personality to survive the Holocaust. She knows what she wants and will not settle for less.

“Later, when I had to go through interviews for promotions in the Hitler Youth, I always denied having had a Jew for a friend. Before long, Heinz had become just a fleeting memory.”

Alfons demonstrates indifference toward his Jewish friend Heinz. He doesn’t hate him, but he doesn’t show concern about his fate either. He forgets about him, and his lack of compassion is partly what allows the Nazis to carry out genocide.

“It was horribly brutal, but at the same time very exciting to us kids.”

Alfons describes Kristallnacht, and the destruction becomes a captivating spectacle for him and his friends. He doesn’t see how the organized violence foreshadows death for the Jewish people.

“Delinquents could be expelled from the Hitlerjugend, which meant the end of any meaningful career in Nazi Germany.”

Identity links to the Hitler Youth. Without the Hitler Youth, Alfons wouldn’t be able to play a leading role in the Nazi empire. As Alfons remains dedicated to its precepts, he gets a “meaningful career” and eventually leads thousands of young people as a teen.

“There were serious discussions of suicide; we knew how desperate our situation was. This move had destroyed all hope of our ever leaving Europe.”

The Nazis invade the Low Countries, and Helen shows the omnipresence of death and the helplessness of the Jews. Suicide becomes a form of power, with the Jews controlling when the day. The mention of suicide foreshadows the suicide of Siegfried’s mom.

“Not even the most fanatic Hitler Youth leader believed that the term Final Solution meant extermination. We were desperate for laborers, so why would we kill people who were able to work for us?”

The Nazis manage the visibility of death through euphemistic terms like the Final Solution. The obscure diction allows people like Alfons to think that the Nazis aren’t killing Jews but making them work.

“Eichmann took notes during the conference, but never once did the words kill, murder, or exterminate appear on paper. The Nazis were careful to leave no evidence of their plan. Instead, Eichmann referred to the ‘emigration’ or ‘evacuation’ of the Jews.”

The Nazis euphemistic diction extends beyond the “Final Solution.” They use terms like “emigration” and “evacuation” to conceal the genocide from the general public. The need to hide the mass murders suggests most Germans didn’t approve of them or want them to happen.

“The Nazi regime had molded me successfully, for despite our losses, I could still believe in nothing but total victory.”

Though the Nazis face catastrophic setbacks in Russia and North Africa, Alfons still thinks the Nazis will win. It’s as if the Nazis have taken away his capacity for thought: They’ve brainwashed him.

“Every evening, from dusk to midnight, we heard the tramp of hobnailed boots from the street below. Sometimes they would stop, seeming to enter houses. We guessed that they emerged with new victims.”

Helen uses imagery so the reader can picture the terror that she and Siegfried feel as they hide in Holland and hear the Nazis—the wearers of the “hobnailed boots”—patrol the streets below. The frightening picture creates a suspenseful, anxious atmosphere, with Helen and Siegfried waiting for the Nazis to find them.

“I was merely using my judgment as a pilot.”

Hans expresses individual thought, and he’s punished. He’s not supposed to exercise his “judgment” even if it saves him from crashing. What he’s supposed to do is mindlessly follow Nazi orders.

“What kind of a mother are you, to separate yourself from your child?”

Mrs. Safir scolds Helen for putting Doris into hiding. She thinks Helen is demonstrating cruelty or indifference. Yet Helen shows compassion. She puts Doris with another family because she cares about her daughter and wants her to live.

“‘Throw this man out,’ I ordered. ‘If he comes back, shoot him.’”

As Alfons becomes the equivalent of an army captain, he gains new powers, and his tone becomes authoritative. Though Alfons orders the death of the convent teacher if he returns, he still keeps death hidden: He’s not the boy who would have to kill him.

“[A] huge chimney smoked constantly. That building was the gas chamber where many people, mostly Jews, were killed with a poisonous gas, 24 hours a day.”

Death becomes visible to Helen at Auschwitz, and she uses imagery to show the reader the omnipresence of death at the notorious concentration camp. The reader can see the chimney smoking day and night—the killing never stops.

“The SS had rounded up more than 30,000 Jewish women, children, and old men, near a place called Babi Yar, and machine-gunned them into a ravine. Hans had seen it with his own eyes, and it haunted him.”

Alfons’s friend Hans demonstrates compassion and shows that not all Nazis were indifferent, nor did all Nazis take delight in massacring Jews. As Hans saw the Babi Yar massacre, he might have been a part of the mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) that trailed the German Army and systematically murdered Jews.

“The worst abuse came not from the guards but from fellow prisoners.”

Ayers shows how the theme of Compassion Versus Hatred and Indifference plays out among the prisoners at Kratzau. The prisoners don’t show concern for one another and steal each other’s food and things. The inhumane circumstances have brought out the worst in the prisoners.

“They had been shot in the neck and hanged. The signs pinned to their chests read DESERTER.”

Alfons uses imagery to show the death of deserting German soldiers. As the war falls apart, Alfons can’t hide from it. Things are not going as he had hoped they would.

“I was prepared to beg or steal whatever was necessary to survive. Right or wrong, I made everybody else responsible for helping me, and I did not hesitate to make my needs known.”

Helen uses hyperbolic diction to convey her determination to stay alive and get what she wants. She wants compassion from other people—not more brutality.

“These photos were obviously fakes, taken to make us feel guilty.”

Alfons can’t fathom the extreme death toll produced by the Nazis. He and the other Nazis think the French are tricking them. Their reaction reinforces the notion that many Germans didn’t support genocide.

“I wish you had never come back.”

Helen uses dialogue to demonstrate the contentious reunion between her and Doris. Her daughter had a nice life before Helen came back. She doesn’t like that her mom disrupted it.

“[W]e are the other part of the Holocaust, the generation burdened with the responsibility for Auschwitz. That is our life sentence for having been the enthusiastic followers of Adolf Hitler.”

Alfons uses hyperbolic language to convey the consequences of supporting the Nazis. Their association with the Nazis will last forever or be forgotten. It’s a “life sentence.”

“I was fired from my first job without any explanation and was naturally upset. Only later did I learn that this company never hired Jews.”

Antisemitism doesn’t end with the conclusion of World War II. It exists in multiple forms, and Helen loses her job in Chicago because she’s Jewish.

“‘As far as I’m concerned, no German of your generation has the right to ask forgiveness.’ ‘I didn’t ask.’”

The dialogue between the rabbi and Alfons reveals that people can include and interact with problematic figures without absolving them. Alfons doesn’t want forgiveness, and Helen doesn’t forgive him or any Nazi, but she doesn’t banish him. She maintains a dialogue to promote understanding.