Danny: PB-3087

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                I believe that Prisoner B-3087 attempts to show a “coming of age” story through the lens of a young boy surviving through the Holocaust. However, I feel like Yanek fails to truly experience the “coming of age,” primarily due to the fact that he is forced to grow up and spend most of his adolescence in the concentration camps.
                Yanek first becomes a man at his bar mitzvah. The book reads, “The Torah scrolls were taken out and unrolled so I could read from them. My Hebrew was rough… I muddled through, and if God or man heard anything amiss, neither of them called me on it” (46). He undergoes his ceremony and he is celebrated for his newfound manhood. However, his ‘rough’ Hebrew shows that this ceremony was not a true one, not one that would normally be considered done correctly. This bar mitzvah’s incompleteness only set the stage for Yanek’s inability to grow in the future.
                Moshe serves as the symbol for a true man through the course of this story. Yanek follows his words of wisdom, attempting to become ‘nobody’ as Moshe advises. However, Yanek seems to disobey this order that Moshe gives him, often revealing his own personality. I feel as if this is because Moshe himself failed to survive with his own advice, while Yanek managed to survive.
                Yanek constantly went against Moshe’s advice, going as far to help another boy during a Death March. Yanek says, “Within just a few meters I stumbled under the weight of him, but I didn’t let go” (175). Yanek goes against everything Moshe tells him for what seems like nothing. But Yanek reasons with himself, saying that he knows this boy is a real person and had a life before this moment.

                I think, all in all, that Yanek was unable to truly become a man due to the Holocaust. He was unable to truly grow up, due to the Holocaust staggering his growth by starvation, thirst, and destroying his youthful mentality. It makes me feel as if Prisoner B-3087 fails as a “coming of age” novel, but is done purposefully, to show that disgusting events such as the Holocaust ruin the lives of others.

Comments

  1. Taylor SimmonsNovember 14, 2017 at 5:57 PM

    I actually agree with you saying that the Holocaust caused Yanek to not be able to become a man. This interrupted his life in the worst way so I completely understand what you mean when you say this novel failed as a "coming of age" novel.

    ReplyDelete

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