How we cite our quotes: Chapter.Paragraph
Quote #4
"Once it was believed birch trees housed souls of the dead. Even today, at Pentecost…people cut down branches of the birch and bring it into the house to put around the windows." (20.103)
Birch trees are symbolic of the dead in Poland. They also figured prominently in Gemma's version of Briar Rose, where "white birch trees gleamed like the souls of the new dead." (21.1) Some fairy tale, huh?
Quote #5
"Five thousand corpses?" Josef murmured, still not believing. By the first week's end he could name a good many of them. (26.6)
Josef was imprisoned in a labor camp, as opposed to a concentration camp or an extermination camp. But that didn't mean there wasn't death all around him.
Quote #6
The outcome of the raid was never in doubt. They all expected to die, though not a one of them said it out loud.…Josef alone said it. "We are all going to die." They shunned him then. (27.27-27.29)
The first group of partisans that Josef falls in with after he escapes the camp went on a suicide mission. Why do you think they sacrificed themselves? And why were they unwilling to talk about it?