How we cite our quotes: Chapter.Paragraph
Quote #1
"You may not get another…another…chance. Not before she…" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, as if death were too final a punctuation. (2.47)
As the story begins, Becca and her sisters are coming to terms with Gemma's looming death. It's so difficult and emotional that Becca can't even bring herself to say the word.
Quote #2
"It was not even a concentration camp. It was simply a place of…extermination." "Then my grandmother was there?" "That is not possible, my dear," Harvey said, his voice suddenly very old. "No woman ever escaped Kulmhof alive." (14.86-14.88)
During her journey to uncover Gemma's story, Becca has to come to terms with not only her heritage, but the genocide of her people during the Holocaust.
Quote #3
Her dreams were filled with images of the camps, gleaned from many horror movies: the scarecrow men, their ribs protruding like hideous maps; the piles of bodies in the mass graves all grown together as if in a garden of death; children with eyes like devalued coins, caught behind the wire barbs." (16.26)
Like for many people, Becca's knowledge about the Holocaust is centered on concentration camps, and those sound bad enough. She's horrified to learn about extermination camps like the one that her grandmother survived.