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52 pages 1 hour read

Lauren Grodstein

We Must Not Think of Ourselves: A Novel

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Chapters 23-34Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 23 Summary

Adam switches from teaching poetry to teaching Moby Dick, one of the only two books he brought with him to the ghetto. The children are hungry, and to help curb their appetite, Adam reads a description of whale brains being cooked and eaten. The students discuss how they are so hungry that they are ready to eat anything, even non-kosher whale brains.

When the group walks out after class, they spot the light on in the Nowolipki Street Café, which hasn’t been open in months. They peer inside to see Szifra enjoying a luxurious meal by herself. A crowd gathers, and people murmur that Szifra has been trading sexual favors with the Nazi to be able to eat like this. Someone bitterly calls out “whore.”

Adam interviews Jakub for the archive. The boy confesses that he doesn’t have many memories of his life before the ghetto. He also reveals that he is not very hungry anymore, as Szifra has found a new source of food. She has been bad-tempered and mean as of late, telling her brothers to be nice to her, as she is saving their lives. Sometimes she calls them a burden, as she could have left the ghetto already but is getting papers organized so that she can take her brothers with her.

Chapter 24 Summary

Adam reminisces about his life when Kasia was alive. The couple lived a normal life with occasional luxuries, and no one had any reason to ever turn Adam away. After Kasia died, he didn’t think there could be any greater tragedy than that. He believes that the deaths of thousands is an abstraction; it only becomes a tragedy when “you focus the abstraction down to each individual loss” (238). Sometimes, Adam would sit and drive for an entire night, thinking about how no one’s life has ever been as sorrowful as his.

Chapter 25 Summary

In July, Emil tells Adam and Sala that the Judenrat has been asked to make a list of people from the ghetto for deportation. Everyone knows that the Jews deported to the camps further east are then “liquidated.” The Nazis are targeting the orphanages first.

Desperate, Adam takes the necklace to Nowak, but before he can hand it over, Nowak tells him that Henryk and the entire Duda family has been killed. Henryk was working for the Germans, brokering houses for them as bribes so that he could stay in his own—Nazis currently occupy Adam’s old apartment. At the same time, he was passing information to the Polish Home Army. He was finally caught and punished for his double-dealing.

Nowak reveals that he can still help Adam. Adam finally shows him the necklace, asking for a safe passage out to Sweden in addition to papers. Nowak asserts that he will have a kennkarte ready for Adam by next Thursday, but Adam doesn’t entirely believe him. As Adam walks home, he feels surprisingly light and realizes that it is the “lightness that [comes] with the freedom from hope” (248).

Chapter 26 Summary

Szifra comes to meet Adam. She looks worn out and aged and claims that she has been busy. She asks Adam to teach her to say “I am a virgin” in German (249), as the people who are helping her like virgins. To Adam’s concern, Szifra asserts that she is doing whatever she can for her brothers, claiming there is no other way.

Chapter 27 Summary

Adam remembers how he found out about his father’s death. The grocer delivered a telegram with news of his father being killed in action on the Russian front. Adam and his brother, Szimon, received it and decided not the tell their mother. They kept the secret for six days, until their mother finally visited the grocer’s on Sunday. The boys followed her and watched her collapse on the sidewalk in sorrow when she received the news.

Adam writes about his experience of the day’s events for the archive: Posters are put up asking people to volunteer for deportation with a promise of bread and jam as a reward. Despite knowing the truth of where they are headed, many sign up because of the food. To make up the required numbers, the guards drag people off the street away. On the first day, 6,000 people are taken. Adam believes that the purpose of the archive is to capture a portrait of Polish Jews at their final moments in history, as there will be no survivors left.

Adam reflects on language itself. He loves English for its mutability, as it has been shaped by multiple languages around the world. He loves Polish because it is what he conducted his daily affairs in. However, Yiddish is the first language he ever learned, and it reminds him “of sweetness and home” (259). If he survives, he will conduct the rest of his life in English, Polish, and perhaps even German; if he dies, the Yiddish will die with him, and no one will remember it.

Adam adds a postscript to his entry: Emil informs Sala and Adam that Adam Czerniaków, head of the Judenrat in the ghetto, died by suicide after being unable to save the orphans from deportation.

Chapter 28 Summary

All of Adam’s students survive the first deportation. In class, the children discuss the news and how it looks like England will surrender soon. Roman claims that his father is trying to get them papers to escape, and Jakub lets slip that Szifra has already done so; the Josephs are leaving in a day or two. Adam attempts to dispel the bleak mood by fibbing that he has read the English papers and is sure that Germany will surrender soon. However, the children squabble amongst themselves, and Eli and Jakub walk out mid-class, with Eli claiming that he is glad he never has to see any of them again.

Chapter 29 Summary

Adam and Sala discuss ways to survive. Sala refuses Adam’s request that she run away with him, stating that she loves her husband and would never leave him. However, she would do anything to secure her children’s safety. Adam tells Sala about Nowak and the necklace, and although Adam is ashamed, Sala is insistent that he take the opportunity to escape. She claims that if she had papers, she would take her children and leave without a second thought. Adam tells Sala that he loves her in English and Polish, and Sala finally says it back in Yiddish.

Chapter 30 Summary

Adam heads to his basement classroom early and finds Szifra’s corpse inside, with the word “slut” written across her coat and forehead in Yiddish and Polish. Inside her coat pocket are two authentic Polish kennkartes for two young boys named Jan Krasinski and Piotr Krasinski, with pictures of Jakub and Eli attached.

Adam retrieves the kennkartes and informs the Jewish police to have the body moved. He waits to break the news to Eli and Jakub, but even after the hearse takes Szifra’s body away, the boys don’t show up. Adam reasons with himself that the boys would never survive on the outside without Szifra. He gives the kennkartes to Sala, who replaces the photographs with those of her own sons.

Chapter 31 Summary

Adam runs through memories of his wedding to Kasia but is unable to remember more than flashes of her face. He thinks that if she had been alive, she would have read the signs, and they would have left the country earlier. Without Kasia, Adam “lost [his] radar, [his] map to the world” (281). Adam remembers how, after the wedding, Kasia’s mother pulled him aside and cursed him for doing this to her family. Adam wonders if, by cursing him, she accidentally cursed her own family and country of people into dying terrible deaths, or perhaps the curse’s fulfillment is that Adam is the only one left alive.

Chapter 32 Summary

On Thursday, Adam goes to meet Nowak. Nowak hands over a package, instructing Adam only to open it when he is somewhere safe. He instructs Adam to leave on a Saturday morning through a particular street gate.

At home, Adam finds a Polish kennkarte for a man named Adam Pasternack in the package, along with tram tickets, ration cards, and some money. As Sala is serving Emil dinner, Adam informs her that he has a way to get her children out. He asks Sala to come with him, too, but Emil finally speaks up, asserting that Sala is his wife. He begs Sala not to leave, stating that the Germans have already taken everything else from him, and begins to cry. Sala kisses his forehead and promises not to leave as Adam steps away.

Chapter 33 Summary

Adam visits Roman and Charlotte’s home and meets their mother. When he tells her that he won’t be continuing classes anymore, she warns him not to get on the train. Adam assures her that he won’t, and she wishes him well, asserting that he will be missed.

Sala trades her wedding ring for a box of blond hair dye for her sons. She breaks the news to them and dismisses their protestations, promising that they will meet again once the war is over. The family eats their Shabbos meal together that night, and although Adam is hungry, he does not join them.

Chapter 34 Summary

On Saturday morning, Adam goes to Ringelblum’s residence and hands over his Oneg Shabbat notebook to Ringelblum’s wife. He thanks her for the opportunity, and she thanks him for his service. Sala sees off Adam and the boys, who are posing as Adam’s nephews. Adam professes his love to her one last time, and Sala makes Adam promise to keep her boys safe.

The Polish guard inspects Adam and the boys and lets them through after checking their kennkartes. As they head to the tram stop, Adam reflects on how the boys are his responsibility now; one day, he will give them “remembrances of their mother” (294). Rafel asserts out loud that they will never see his parents or anyone else in the ghetto again. Arkady and Adam do not reply; all three wait at the tram stop opposite the ghetto, “new people, born anew” (294).

Chapters 23-34 Analysis

The plot moves quickly to a climax that weaves together multiple threads of the story. In Szifra’s story, she meets an unfortunate end fueled by her community’s displeasure at her fraternizing with the Nazis. Separately, Henryk and his family meet a similar end when his double-dealing is discovered by the Nazis. Both of these storylines are integral to the plot and Adam and Sala’s future: With Henryk out of the picture, Adam is forced to depend on Nowak to get him papers, and the Polish guard proves far more trustworthy than Henryk ever was. Szifra’s death yields Adam an opportunity to do something for the woman he loves as well—although Sala will never leave the ghetto with him, the kennkartes meant for Szifra’s brothers give Adam and Sala a chance to save her children. Thus, Szifra, Henryk, and Adam and Sala’s stories meet in a climactic moment as Adam prepares to leave the ghetto.

A huge impetus for Adam finally deciding to leave the ghetto is the mounting grief and desperation all around him. Adam is not a stranger to death and loss; he has lost a parent as well as a wife. Despite these losses, when Adam came into the ghetto, he still held the view that things could be worse. Now, however, there are deportations arriving at the ghetto daily. Furthermore, he has witnessed the brutal deaths of people he knew: Filip, Mariam, and now Szifra. For Adam, the deaths of thousands are abstractions made real by an individual and personal event. Adam’s desperation and despondency point to how, despite the Resilience of the Human Spirit, continuous and unmitigated tragedy takes its toll over time.

Even with Adam’s flagging spirits, his drive to survive is still strong, and this yields complex and layered moral decisions. When deportations arrive at the ghetto, Adam not only risks giving up the necklace, but his first thought is only about his own survival. Adam does later feel ashamed at having bought only himself a potential passage out, but Sala in turn is insistent that he leave. This is not because of a lack of attachment between the couple—Sala does finally tell Adam that she loves him, after all—but because she understands that in these oppressive times, survival of the self is the priority.

Adam demonstrates this same urge to protect oneself and one’s own when he takes the Polish kennkartes meant for Szifra’s brothers back home to Sala. Adam justifies the action to himself by reflecting on how the boys wouldn’t survive on the outside without their sister. In truth, he is motivated by his love for Sala and her earlier assertion that she would do anything to protect her sons. There is a part of Adam that wonders if this means she will leave Emil behind and escape the ghetto, too. Thus, Adam, who has so far been kind, concerned, and considerate about the fate of the people around him, also slips into survival mode as things worsen, demonstrating that Morality Under Oppression is often skewed.

Adam also finally understands the importance of the Oneg Shabbat Archive. As Jews are carted away to be killed by the thousands every day, he realizes that their documentation is meant to capture the final moments of the Polish Jews’ history. All his doubts and the different perspectives he encountered about the futility of the project are resolved: Adam accepts that there is no escaping the current reality; their work today is aimed at preserving their culture and stories, not their lives. Miraculously, Adam is one of the few who does manage to escape the ghetto by the end of the book. However, his insights on the importance of Memory and Documentation stay with him. He hands over his Oneg Shabbat data but resolves to pass on to Sala’s boys the remembrances of their mother someday. As they escape to their new lives, Adam and the boys both know that they will never meet Sala, Emil, or anyone else in the ghetto again. The work of remembering, especially in these circumstances, is not happy or triumphant; it is hard and steeped in grief but necessary to ensure that entire stories and perspectives are not lost.

Language continues to be a recurring motif in these final chapters. Adam reflects on the different languages he knows and the feelings they evoke in him. Yiddish, in particular, is his connection to his culture, and it is significant that this is the language in which Sala finally tells Adam that she loves him. Kasia’s necklace, too, makes a final appearance, and it is what ultimately buys Adam his freedom.

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