54 pages • 1 hour read
Louise MurphyThe True Story of Hansel and Gretel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 26-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 26 Summary: “March 11, 1944”
The partisans see a growing number of German forces retreating through Poland, pursued by Russian airplanes. The partisans work to slow the German’s retreat by planting fake land mines in their paths. When the soldiers exit their tanks to examine the mines, the partisans shoot them. Villagers who assisted the partisans join their group and discuss how difficult the war has been on Poland, and how difficult the country’s recovery may be. One young villager, Dobry, is particularly upset that his God did not stop the war. He argues with an older man, Starzec, about divine responsibility. An enormous group of Russian troops marches along the road. The Russian partisan calls out to them and arranges for the partisans to join the Russians as they liberate Polish villages from the Nazis. The Mechanik hopes to find his children in one of the villages.
Hansel asks Halina to play, but she worries about going against her aunt’s wishes. He tells her that they can play in a secret location if she does not tell anyone about it, and the children run into the woods. Hansel leads Halina to the hidden shelter that Magda showed him. They pretend to be a family inside the pit. Halina assures Hansel that she will not tell anyone about the shelter.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Confession”
Telek resolves to kill Sister Rosa and reclaim Nelka’s baby. Though he does not intend to tell Nelka about his plan, she knows that he will do it. Nelka does not attempt to change his mind but asks him to confess his plan to Father Piotr. She believes that he must do so to avoid damnation for the retribution his plan may bring upon the other villagers. Telek reluctantly agrees to speak with the priest.
Father Piotr does not approve of Telek’s relationship with Nelka until Telek reveals his plan to kill the Nazis and escape with Nelka and her baby. Father Piotr does not condone Telek’s actions, but he privately hopes that Telek’s plan will succeed. He asks Telek to wait until the next night to carry out his plan, and then he absolves him of sin. When Telek leaves the church, Father Piotr recalls the love he experienced as a young man. He regrets his failures and doubts the worth of his own soul.
Chapter 28 Summary: “The Babe”
The Major orders Telek, Feliks, and Patryk to dig up and burn the bodies of executed villagers before the Russians arrive. As they work, the men discuss the Nazi retreat and the progress of the Russians. Telek visits Magda to warn her about his plan and urge her to hide with Hansel and Gretel. He notices that Magda has a bad cough. Hansel eavesdrops on their conversation and worries that Nelka and Telek will be killed. He resolves to try and assist them. That evening, Hansel sneaks into the village to ask Father Piotr for help. The priest sends Hansel away, but Hansel hides in the village and watches Father Piotr from a distance.
Father Piotr considers praying but believes it would be hypocritical given his intentions. He walks to Sister Rosa’s dwelling and distracts the Nazi guard with a jar of vodka. Father Piotr stabs the guard, killing him. He enters the house and surprises Sister Rosa in the act of changing clothes. Father Piotr kills her by cutting her throat. The baby cries. When Nelka comes to check on him, she realizes what Father Piotr has done and urges him to run away with her and Telek. The priest refuses. He believes that Nelka has a better chance of escaping without him. She takes the baby and flees.
Hansel emerges from the shadows. He tells Father Piotr that he will warn Magda to hide and suggests that the priest hide with them. Father Piotr again sends Hansel away. He sits alone on the porch and wishes he had expressed his love for Nelka. While he waits for the Nazis to apprehend him, he hears the approach of the Russian forces.
Chapter 29 Summary: “March 21, 1944”
The Major discovers Father Piotr’s crime but does not alert the Oberführer. He suspects that the SS officer will want to kill villagers as a reprisal and does not want that to happen. He believes the Poles may fight back and does not have time to burn more dead bodies before the Russians arrive. The Major orders Wiktor to gather a group of soldiers and search for Nelka.
When the Oberführer awakens to learn that Nelka has escaped, he orders Father Piotr and every third person in the village executed. He also says that Hansel, Gretel, and Magda will be killed. The Major protests and grows angry when the Oberführer continues to insist upon the killings. He reveals that he knows about the blood transfusions the Oberführer performed on Nelka and suggests that Nelka really did have Gypsy ancestors. The furious Oberführer accepts that the Major has the upper hand. He agrees to let most of the villagers live if Piotr, Hansel, Gretel, and Magda are killed. The Major shoots Father Piotr in front of the other villagers. The Oberführer orders Zanna, a villager, to lead him to Magda’s hut. He learns from a child that Halina has sometimes played with Hansel in the woods.
As Telek and Nelka escape into the forest, Nelka realizes that Father Piotr killed Sister Rosa to prevent Telek from doing it. She wants to tell Magda to hide, but Telek assures her that he has already done so. Nelka vows to go back for Magda after the Nazis are gone. Hansel tries to awaken Magda so that they can hide from the Nazis, but Magda is feverish and has a hard time understanding his urgency. They hear German voices outside the hut. Magda urges Hansel and Gretel to hide inside the stifling oven. Magda stays out to tell the Oberführer that the children’s mother took them away. He does not believe her and decides to burn the hut. He also orders a Sergeant to execute Zanna, but the Sergeant does not respect the Oberführer and fires his gun into the ground. He believes the Major would appreciate his defiance of the SS officer. The Nazis leave the woods with Magda in their truck.
Hansel and Gretel crawl out of the oven and into the burning hut. Hansel worries that there may be soldiers outside, but he believes they have no choice but to flee. The children leave the hut and run to the creek. Though Gretel thinks that Magda was trying to cook them, Hansel recognizes Magda’s sacrifice and mourns her capture.
The Mechanik and the partisans arrive in the village. The Mechanik asks a woman about Hansel and Gretel, and she directs him to Magda’s burned hut. The Mechanik finds only ashes and calls for Hansel and Gretel. When he does not hear a reply, he assumes that his wife and children are dead.
Chapter 30 Summary: “The Oven”
Soldiers load Magda into a truck filled with Jewish captives. She is shocked to see Father Piotr’s body under the seat. A fellow captive tells her that he helped Nelka and Telek escape with the baby. Though Magda is pleased for a moment, she quickly becomes upset at the thought of all the suffering inflicted during the war. She briefly wishes that the world would end but changes her mind when she thinks of Hansel. The Nazis transfer Magda and the others to a packed boxcar on its way to Birkenau, a concentration camp. Several Jewish captives are kind to Magda, helping her walk and undress as Nazis force them into an underground room at the camp.
The Nazis lead Magda into a room along with many others. She believes that she is there for a shower and resolves to work hard at the camp so that the Nazis will let her live. Instead, gas suffocates the people in the room. As she lays dying, Magda thinks of her family and Hansel. The narrator describes the treatment of Magda’s body after her death. Workers check her for gold teeth and cut her hair. They load Magda’s body into an oven and burn it to ash, which they then dump in a river. One of the workers, devastated by the acts he must perform, imagines the souls of the gassed drifting above the river.
Chapters 26-30 Analysis
This section of the novel begins in March of 1944. After a devastating winter, the first hints of spring arrive in Piaski. The action of the novel mirrors the changing of the seasons. As the ice and snow melt, the plot picks up speed. German forces begin to lose their grip on Poland. The partisans watch them evacuate and attempt to sabotage their retreat. While this does not mean that Magda and those she cares about are out of danger, an end to the horrors of Nazi occupation finally seems possible.
Major plot threads that span the novel begin to resolve in quick succession. Hansel shows the hidden shelter to Halina, delivering on foreshadowing that he would tell his friend too many of his secrets. Telek’s plan to take Nelka’s baby back from the Nazis also comes to fruition, although not in the way he expected. By allowing Father Piotr to kill Sister Rosa, reclaim the infant, and take punishment for his actions, the author provides the priest with a measure of redemption for his past. After his long journey with the partisans, the Mechanik arrives in Piaski with hopes of finding his children.
The largest plot resolution again evokes the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. When the Oberführer charges into Magda’s hut, Magda forces Hansel and Gretel to hide in her oven. Instead of cooking the children as the fairy tale witch sought to, Magda hides them in the oven to save their lives. This subversion of the traditional story underscores Magda’s capacity for love. She has been presented as a trustworthy and even warm character for much of the novel, but her sacrifice renders her even braver and more caring. The fairy tale witch burns in her own oven, but Magda falls victim to the more systemic killing favored by the Nazis.
By showing what happens to Magda after her capture, the novel zooms out to reveal how World War II played out beyond the Polish forest. Magda’s transportation to a concentration camp and subsequent gassing happen in such a short span of pages that they are disorienting to read. The author’s tone becomes clinical as she describes how the workers at Birkenau process Magda’s dead body: “Magda’s body was under many others,” the text reads. “A man leaned over her, pulled open her mouth and stared inside. There were almost no teeth, and no gold. He cut her hair a slash of the dull razor and put the white locks in a bag” (253). The contrast between how the novel humanizes Magda’s character while she is alive and how the Nazis dehumanize her before and after her death provides another stirring indictment of the Holocaust.
