The Boy On The Wooden Box

This chapter, which describes the mounting turmoil that Jewish Europeans experienced during the war, acts as a crucial turning point in the narrative, for when Leon’s father met Oskar Schindler, he gained a valuable connection to the man who would ultimately be responsible for saving the lives of Leon, his family, and hundreds of other Jews. Additionally, the early scenes of violence in this chapter—particularly the beating and imprisonment of Moshe—foreshadow the more extreme events to come in the Nazi concentration camps. The scene of Moshe’s beating was the worst moment of Leon’s life up until this point and would haunt him long afterward. He considers this event to be “the symbol for all the horrible viciousness that would follow” (57), and it caused him to finally realize the danger that the Nazis posed to himself and his family.

Throughout this chapter, the narrative depicts Leon making important decisions as an adult would. He and his siblings engaged in Passive Resistance in the Face of Oppression when they sought out their imprisoned father, obtained jobs to support the family, and comforted their mother when she was distraught over Moshe’s fate. These traumatic experiences forced Leon to grow up very quickly, and he showed maturity and bravery beyond his years. As he and his siblings focused on Drawing Strength from Family Loyalty, Leon gained a measure of life experience, and his bravery would play a decisive role when he was forced into the Płaszów concentration camp. Thus, Leon’s developing characterization lays the groundwork for his actions in later chapters. 

As the antisemitic measures increased in Kraków, Leon found himself abandoned by his erstwhile friends, who went about their lives as normal while he suffered discrimination and injustice. Reflecting upon this experience, Leyson depicts the cold indifference of much of the gentile population to the fate of their Jewish neighbors and laments the fact that others in his community failed to apprehend the full gravity of these hateful trends in society. He relates that many Jews in Kraków persisted in the delusion of judging the present events against the standards of the past and suggests that they were therefore caught off-guard by the unprecedented dangers of their situation. As Leyson comments: 

My father was making the same mistake so many others were, believing that the Germans with whom he was now dealing were no different from the ones he had known before. He had no idea, nor could he have had, of the limitless inhumanity and evil of this new enemy (55). 

Leyson also makes it a point to contrast his father’s initial lack of alarm with the man’s drastic transformation after his release from prison. Leyson observes that the Nazis had “stripped [Moshe] of his strength” and of “the confidence and self-esteem that had put a spring in his step” (63). As he describes the morose new version of his father, he makes it clear that Moshe’s time in prison has cost him “something even more precious: his dignity as a human being” (63). Stricken by the profound changes in his father, Leon himself experienced a crisis of confidence, for he could not stand to see his father so “defeated.” In the face of his father’s suffering, he despaired of resisting the Nazis himself.