The Forest of Vanishing Stars

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-14

Chapters 15-20

Chapters 21-28

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Character Analysis

Yona

When the novel begins in 1922, protagonist Yona is a two-year-old girl named Inge Juttner, who lives in Berlin with her parents, Siegfried and Alwine. Her life changes completely when she is kidnapped by a mysterious woman named Jerusza and taken deep into the forests of Eastern Poland, where she grows to adulthood in almost total isolation.

Yona has a birthmark shaped like a dove, so Jerusza names her Yona, the Hebrew word for “dove.” Through this pairing, Yona comes to embody the dove’s symbolism, representing hope and peace for the Jewish refugees. In the forest, Yona learns how to survive, heal, and even kill, and Jerusza tells her she is destined for important things. As an adult, Yona encounters groups of Polish Jews fleeing Nazi persecution and helps them survive the war by hiding in the deep forests she knows so well. Among the survivors, Yona finds love, learns about loss, and discovers the secrets of her identity.

When Yona ventures into a Polish village to help an injured child, she encounters her father, Siegfried Juttner, who is now a Nazi officer overseeing the murders of Jews and sympathizers in the village. The two are foils for each other, elevating Yona’s self-determination and moral code above her father’s choice to “follow orders,” no matter how brutal. Their encounters emphasize the book’s message that identities are made rather than inherited; Yona is more Jerusza’s daughter than Juttner’s. He also reveals that Yona’s mother was part Jewish, deepening her connection to the Jewish survivors she has been helping all along.

After helping many people survive the German occupation, Yona is shot by her Nazi father but survives. She also kills him, putting into practice everything that Jerusza taught her and positing that self-defense is a vital survival skill. After resolving the central conflict and her questions about her identity and destiny, Yona gets a fairy-tale happy ending, in which she lives in the forest with her love, Zus, and their children until she dies at age 100.

Jerusza

Jerusza is a mysterious old woman who knows things that should be impossible for her to know, such as the deaths and births of famous people and the circumstances of Yona’s conception. Jerusza is 82 when the story begins, and she knows the exact date she will die. She is the last of a long line of Jewish wise women who might be called “witches,” and the voice of the forest tells her to take the child Inge and raise her to meet a great destiny.

Jerusza plays the archetypal mentor role. She knows many languages and teaches them all to Yona, along with all the skills she needs to survive in the forest. These skills include killing for self-defense and stealing supplies, emphasizing that the path to survival is not always strictly legal. Juxtaposed with the Nazi officers like Juttner’s “following orders,” Jerusza’s characterization highlights the nuances in right and wrong since the state can authorize evil things. Even kidnapping Yona proves to be a moral decision, as Yona could only fulfill her destiny in the forest. Jerusza educates Yona about languages and religions, but she is not a tender mother figure. As Jerusza is dying, she tells Yona the truth about stealing her from her parents in Berlin but refuses to say that she loves her.

Aleksander

Aleksander is one of the first Jewish refugees that Yona encounters in the forest after she fails to save Chana and her family. She teaches him and his group how to survive in the forest and stays with them for a time. Aleksander becomes Yona’s first love, and their relationship lasts for several months, but their connection becomes frayed as other survivors appear.

Aleksander is uncomfortable with Yona’s role in the group and doesn’t understand how to relate to her, struggling to see her as a leader since she is a woman. Eventually, she finds him having sex with Sulia, another woman in the group to whom he relates more. Sulia likewise says Yona behaves more like a man. Aleksander is killed by Belorussian border guards while trying to protect others, and Yona realizes that although Aleksander betrayed her trust, he was a hero who died honorably.

Zus

Zus (Zusia Krakinovski) is a member of the second Jewish group Yona helps survive in the forest. Unlike Aleksander, Zus sees Yona’s wisdom and talent and accepts her leadership when it comes to survival. As a result, Yona feels deeply connected to him. In Yona’s absence, he becomes a de facto leader of the blended group and later leads some forays out of the forest to find food and supplies.

Zus falls in love with Yona, accepting her for who she is and taking pride in her accomplishments. His insight helps Yona understand that identity is made, not inherited, and she is a good person regardless of her parentage. He is also tormented by grief and guilt over the fate of his wife and child, who were tortured and killed by the Nazis. During the climactic confrontation with Siegfried Juttner, Zus is nearly shot, but Yona intervenes to save him. After the war, he lives out his life with her in the forest.

Siegfried Juttner

Siegfried Juttner is Yona’s father and the book’s antagonist, a Nazi official in charge of exterminating Jews and partisans in Eastern Poland during the war. He joined Hitler’s National Socialist Workers Party in 1919, and in the following decades rose in the ranks of the Nazi Party. When Yona reunites with him in the Polish village, he tries to force her to stay with him, but she escapes back to the forest when she realizes he intends to kill the Jewish refugees hiding there. As Yona’s foil, Juttner represents the pitfalls of conformity rather than making one’s own choices and morality; he mentions “following orders” multiple times to justify his actions.

Months later, as the Nazis are in retreat, he finds her in the forest and reveals the final secret of Yona’s identity: Her mother was part Jewish. Juttner exemplifies that hate can persist even in families and marriages, as he is deeply antisemitic and wants to “save” Yona from her Jewish heritage, starting by killing her love. When he aims his gun at Zus, Yona throws herself between them and is shot, then kills him with her knife, as Jerusza taught her to do. This climax symbolizes Yona carving out her own identity separate from her father, choosing Zus and Jerusza as her family. Juttner also personifies the Nazi regime, and his words and actions reveal the Holocaust’s cruelty.