77 pages • 2 hours read
Alan GratzPrisoner B-3087
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Essay Topics
How does Yanek define survival? Use textual evidence to support your answer.
How do Yanek’s father’s wisdom and Uncle Moshe’s survival advice create conflict in Yanek?
Good versus evil is a major theme of the novel. How does Yanek define good and evil in his own life and in the camps?
What does bread symbolize for Yanek? How does Yanek’s relationship to bread alter his feelings about himself?
How do the Nazis dehumanize the prisoners? How does Yanek respond to this dehumanization? Use textual evidence to support your answer.
In Chapter 9 Yanek is given a prisoner’s uniform. He thinks, “Now I am officially a prisoner—in truth I had been a prisoner since the Nazis walled off the Kraków ghetto” (65). How was Yanek’s life in Nazi-dominated Kraków like being imprisoned? How was it similar to life in the concentration camps?
Describe Yanek’s relationship to Fred. What does Fred symbolize for Yanek?
What does the zoo in Buchenwald symbolize? Use textual evidence to support your answer.
Describe the narration style of the novel. How does Yanek’s first-person point of view shape the narrative?
Emphasis is placed on Yanek’s bar mitzvah, which is the Jewish ceremony where a boy becomes a man. How does Yanek define manhood, and how do his experiences in the concentration camps shape this understanding?
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