Prisoner B-3087

The Nazi soldiers take over Kraków, and everything changes. The Jewish residents lose their jobs, and the Jewish children can no longer attend school. Instead of money they must use ration cards to obtain food, and Yanek is disheartened to learn that he can no longer go the library or movie theater. Uncle Moshe realizes that the Nazi soldiers are “branding [Jews] like cattle” (11) by making them wear armbands with the Star of David to signify that they’re Jewish.

The Nazi soldiers build a wall around Kraków, which has now become a ghetto, to prevent the Jewish residents from leaving. Yanek’s parents force him to stay inside because they are afraid he will be taken by the Nazi soldiers and forced to work.

The Nazis force Jewish families in Kraków to live crowded together in small apartments. Yanek and his family take other families into their apartment, and he starts to resent his lack of privacy. One night he jumps at the chance to leave the apartment with his father. They sneak through the streets and arrive at the bakery that Yanek’s Uncle Abraham owns. While most every Jewish resident has lost their job, Abraham is allowed to keep his bakery to make bread for the Nazi soldiers. Yanek and his father help Uncle Abraham bake bread to secretly sell to Jewish families.

Yanek’s father is out of the apartment procuring their rations when there’s a knock at the door. Yanek’s mother is too afraid to answer, so he opens the door instead. A German officer and a Judenrat, a Jewish resident that the Nazi guards put in charge, are at the door. They burst in and demand to take any valuables. They take the valuables and leave, but Yanek sees them carry away their neighbors.

The Nazis start taking families away from Kraków in trucks. The remaining Jewish families “never heard where they went” (31). One day Yanek is exploring his apartment building and realizes that a set of stairs lead to the roof. On the roof is a pigeon coop, and he convinces his family that they should move into the coop to hide from the Nazi raids. They clean out the coop and attach a bar to the door of the roof entrance so that no one can get in.

Yanek and his family make the pigeon coop their new home. It provides a sense of safety because the Nazis don’t know it exists. This is especially important considering the “home invasions continued without warning” (36). One morning the Judenrat calls a meeting and informs everyone that the Nazis have requested to take away 7,000 Jewish residents. The Judenrat asks the people to give up their children, but the crowd’s outrage shows they will not comply.

Yanek is scared, but his father vows to protect him. That night Yanek’s father sneaks him through the streets of Kraków and into the basement of an abandoned warehouse. Yanek is met by other men in his family and friends of the family, and they hold an informal bar mitzvah to celebrate Yanek’s 13th birthday and coming into manhood.

The Nazi soldiers collect 7,000 Jewish residents by force. Yanek watches from the safety of his family’s pigeon coop as people are shot in the streets. Yanek’s uncles and cousins are with them in the coop, and they all start arguing about what to do. They decide to stay thanks to Yanek’s wisdom, and they survive this deportation.

Rumors spread that the people who were taken during the deportation were taken to be killed. Yanek realizes that “seven thousand husbands and fathers, wives and mothers, brothers and sisters, and children” (55) have been murdered. One day Yanek’s mother and father are taken by the Nazis. He knows that his parents wouldn’t want him to give up, so he decides that no matter “what the Nazis did to me, no matter what they took from me, I would survive” (59).