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Dov’s life is the book's most powerful symbol for the urgency of creating a Jewish state. His experience in the Warsaw ghetto is represented as a microcosm of the Jewish experience in Europe. Persecuted, ghettoized, and surrounded by enemies that slowly advance upon them, the Jewish people of the Warsaw ghetto, like the Jewish people of Europe, are doomed. There is only one way for Dov to survive, and that is to escape, leave, and never come back. Dov’s flight to Palestine represents the desperation of Europe’s Jewish people to find a safe place to go.
Initially, however, a hate-filled Dov is driven almost exclusively by a desire for revenge. Dov’s experience at Auschwitz underscores the shocking level of cruelty and inhumanity of the Holocaust, not only for those who were murdered but for the survivors as well. It has left Dov a totally broken human, consumed by hatred. He hates everything, including himself. The few he doesn’t hate, he distrusts. It is his experience fighting for a free Jewish state that delivers him. Along the way he meets Karen, who inspires him to become more vulnerable and to face his fears head on. His work with the Maccabees assuages his need for action but also teaches him that revenge can only go so far. In the end, Dov becomes a well-adjusted, emotionally stable person. Dov’s final redemption shows what dignity and freedom from oppression can do for a person. Suddenly love is possible, and so is dealing with the loss of that love. Dov finds that he can keep living meaningfully after Karen’s death because there is still something to fight for.
