The Boy On The Wooden Box

“We were agrarian, unsophisticated, industrious people, Jews and Christians alike, whose lives revolved around family, our religious calendars, and the seasons of sowing and reaping.”

Leyson continues to set the scene of his childhood in Narewka, depicting a world revolving around nature and religion, which the war shattered. His wording here depicts a kind of domestic monotony as he describes the cyclical nature of their lives, suggesting the contrastingly fraught times to come.

“It was a patriarchal society, in which age was respected, even revered, especially when, as in my maternal grandfather’s case, age meant a lifetime of hard work, of caring for his family, and of devotion to his faith.”

This statement anticipates the respect and solicitude that Leon will show toward his parents throughout their dire experiences, suggesting that filial piety is important in his cultural background. It thus lays the groundwork for the theme of Drawing Strength from Family Loyalty.

“After all, what can we trust if not our own experience?”

This turns out to be a fundamental flaw in the thinking of the older generation in the book. They assume that the new war will proceed like World War I, in which the Germans treated the Poles with a certain measure of respect. This conservative way of thinking turns out to be misleading, as the Nazis usher in a situation of unprecedented brutality.

“The fact that I was Jewish and they were not didn’t seem to matter to my new pals. All that mattered was that I shared their sense of mischief and daring.”

Leyson depicts a life of innocence in Narewka and Kraków before the war, in which Jewish and Christian children got along and bonded over common childhood pursuits. Leon and his friends loved to cadge rides on the streetcar for free. Again, Leyson is contrasting attitudes before the war with the social climate after the war, which the reader is likely already familiar with.

“To me, it seemed like we were fully integrated into the city’s life. Now, in retrospect, I realize that there were signs pointing to troubled times ahead.”

This quote is a good example of Leyson’s use of retrospect, interpreting the past in the light of later events. Jews make up one-quarter of Kraków’s population before the war, and they enjoy freedom of movement, trade, and worship. Yet there are troubling signs of antisemitism, including a teacher singling Leon out with a dismissive nickname and the violent behavior of Christian children toward Jews during Holy Week.

“The realization convinced me I couldn’t be passive; I couldn’t simply wait for the Germans to be defeated. I had to act. I had to find my father.”

Leon has this revelation after the Gestapo arrest his father in Chapter 3. It is this frightening experience that spurs Leon to act in defense of his father and defy the Nazis. His actions here show his love for, and loyalty toward, his father.

“The friends with whom I used to play now looked the other way when I was near.”

After the Nazis come into power, Leon’s friends partake in the new antisemitic ideology; they shun or show indifference toward Leon. The quote suggests the influence that the Nazi doctrine has on impressionable children, Leon’s fair-weather friends.

“I was no longer the happy-go-lucky, adventurous boy who had gleefully looked forward to snatching a free ride on a streetcar. Somehow I had become an obstruction to Germany’s goal of world supremacy.”

This is another quote that suggests the strange change in status that Leon experiences after the Nazi takeover. It steals his childhood innocence away and forces him to become an adult overnight. The Nazi ideology regards him not as a human being but an abstraction in a new social order.

“Do as you’re told. Don’t make trouble. Show your value. Survive.”

Leon’s father’s advice, inspired by his first meeting with Schindler when the latter recruits him to open a safe, embodies the theme of Passive Resistance in the Face of Oppression. It is only by remaining inconspicuous and following orders that one can hope to survive as a Jew. Even though Schindler is a Nazi, the father knows he must take his chance with him.

“If this is the worst that happens.”

The Jews of Kraków repeat this mantra to themselves whenever the persecution flares up to preserve some kind of hope. It replaces the phrase “It will soon be over,” which is no longer believable to them. In retrospect, we know that the situation will actually get much worse.

“Actors and musicians resisted by creating makeshift stages in hidden courtyards and performing plays and skits and holding concerts, affirming that beauty and culture could exist even in the midst of the horrible circumstances of the ghetto.”

Leyson describes the ways that Jews quietly resisted the Nazi oppression in the ghetto. By creating art, they affirmed their humanity and proved that the Nazis could not crush their spirits.

“Even when I didn’t quite get the jokes, I laughed anyway because it was a way to show the Nazis they didn’t control me.”

Leon watches a comic sketch performed in the ghetto and experiences the cathartic effect of laughter. It is one of the many small ways Jewish populations resist the Nazis.

“We stayed in the moment, determined to make it through the day unharmed.”

Persecution forces Polish Jews to focus singlehandedly on survival, preventing them from making plans for the future. For example, they are unable to make provisions for Tsalig’s work permit, which leads to his arrest.

“Only the thickness of the barbed wire separated my life in hell from their lives of freedom, but we might as well have been on separate planets.”

This is Leon’s reaction when he sees happy, carefree children of the SS officers outside Płaszów wearing Hitler Youth uniforms and singing songs in praise of Hitler. It is one of two moments in the book where Leon is amazed at the disparity between the persecuted Jews and others; the other moment is when he emerges from the ghetto and sees the gentile Poles leading normal lives.

“For some mysterious reason, he responded as if he saw me as a regular human being who had made a reasonable request. Did he take pity on me, a boy separated from his family? Did he see one of his own children in me? Was he simply being a bureaucrat who didn’t like the fact that a name had been crossed out without his official permission? There’s no way of knowing.”

When Leon speaks out to an SS guard and asks to be transferred to Emalia along with his family, the guard acquiesces to his request. This amazes Leon, and in retrospect, he ponders why the guard did this. Several times in the book, Leyson tries to probe the minds of the Nazis and those who were indifferent to the plight of Europe’s Jews.

“I knew from experience that invisibility was the closest I could get to safety.”

While in the concentration camp, and even at Emalia, Leon adopts the habit of going about his business with his head down, not looking at anyone. Leon convinces himself that making himself as inconspicuous as possible will prevent the Nazis from noticing him and doing him harm. This idea recurs several times: when Leon switches from one group to another in the ghetto roundup, and later when Goeth enters the brush factory and tries to divide the workers into groups.

“It will be all right, Moshe.”

This passage depicts Schindler’s words of comfort to Leon’s father as he works at Emalia, developing the theme of The Importance of Kindness in Dark Times. Spoken as he places his hand on the father’s shoulder, the quote shows Schindler’s compassionate and caring nature as well as a premonition that he will ensure the safety of his employees through to the end of the war.

“By treating us with respect, Schindler was resisting the Nazi racist ideology that constructed a hierarchy of humanity in which Jews were at the very bottom.”

Leyson contends that Schindler’s small acts of kindness at Emalia, although they may seem insignificant, were actually very important because they contradicted the Nazi thinking about the Jewish people. Schindler bore witness to truth and goodness through his actions.

“All I knew was that Schindler may have been a Nazi, and therefore by definition dangerous, but he acted in a way that no other Nazi I knew did.”

The author reminds us repeatedly that Schindler was formally a Nazi and that Leon’s admiration of him was tempered by wariness, as seen particularly when Schindler invites him up to his office. This adds complexity to Schindler—the fact that he is a good man despite being a Nazi Party member. In a sense, Schindler had to have belonged to the Nazi Party to carry out his subversive activity of saving Jews.

“In the midst of this misery Schindler had performed his magic.”

This refers to the time when Schindler rescues hundreds of Jewish women who are on their way to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, ordering the commandants to allow the women to be sent to work at his factory. It is perhaps the most spectacular and visible example of his rescue work and a sign of his immense power over the SS members—a power he would not have were he not himself a Nazi. This action saves Leon’s mother and sister from execution and allows the family to reunite at Emalia.

“I don’t know why, perhaps simply because the six years of stress and suffering had finally caught up with me, but I couldn’t let go of the thought that obsessed me, that I would be shot with the last bullet of the war.”

Leon has this recurring fear that he will die, which becomes particularly intense in the last several months of the war as he becomes physically weaker. He repeatedly has a nightmare in which liberation is close at hand, but he is killed anyway. The quote shows the precarious nature of the Jewish situation during this period, when the chances of surviving were slim.

“He who saves a life saves the world entire.”

This is a quotation from the Talmud that is printed on the gold ring made by Schindler’s employees and presented to him as a farewell present. It implies that Schindler’s rescuing of 1,100 Jews has a broader moral significance and reach.

“Miraculously, Oskar Schindler, this complex man of many contradictions—Nazi opportunist, schemer, courageous maverick, rescuer, hero—had saved nearly 1,200 Jews from almost certain death.”

Leyson admits the complexity of Schindler’s character, but he implies that his heroic deeds made up for his flaws. The passage is significant in that it gives a counterbalance to the many good qualities ascribed to Schindler throughout the book, preventing him from becoming a one-dimensional character.