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Summary
Chapter Eleven
Karen Hansen Clement lives a happy life with her family in Cologne, Germany. When uncertainty begins to move across Europe, beginning in 1937, Karen’s father, Professor Johann Clement, views his university as a place of safety and security. When Karen comes home, her face covered in blood after being harassed for being Jewish, Johann can no longer deny his reality. He goes to the Gestapo and is given a document denying his Judaism. He’s told if he signs it, he can remain in Germany. Johann refuses to deny his religion. He makes his way to an office where he meets Ari Ben Canaan, who is in command of the Mossad branch smuggling German Jews out of the country with fake visas. Ari can only get one child to safety and berates Johann for not leaving Germany sooner. Karen is sent to Denmark on a train, carrying the visa supplied by Ari.
Chapter Twelve
Karen is taken in by a kind Danish couple, Aage and Meta Hansen, whom she quickly grows to love. She adapts easily to her new life and is adopted by the doting Hansens. Soon, the letters Karen was receiving from her family stop. When the Germans invade Denmark in 1940, the Nazis initially claim that the takeover will remain peaceful. Still, the Hansens are scared that Karen will be a target. They have legally adopted her, and she has counterfeit papers, but some of their friends and acquaintances know that Karen is Jewish. Fearful of trusting anyone, the Hansens move to Copenhagen. Karen loves living in the city and is accepted by the Royal Ballet. While they attempt to continue a life as normal as possible, constant bombings become the norm. Germany’s pretense of keeping the takeover peaceful does not last. Just as the Hansens contemplate fleeing again to Sweden to protect Karen, the war ends.
Chapter Thirteen
With the war over, the Hansens face the fact that they have to give up their beloved Karen. If one of her parents have survived, she must return to them. The family reports to the International Refugee Organization for assistance, but there is a backlog. Europe is full of potential orphans trying to locate their parents. After months of waiting, there is no evidence that Karen’s family has survived, but no concrete proof of their deaths either. Karen decides to leave her home of seven years and look for her family. She does not understand the whole story of the war and does not even understand why the Hansens told her not to speak of her Jewish heritage when she was young. She feels the need to answer these questions before she can move on. She is advised that she has a better chance of finding her family if she moves to a displaced persons camp in Sweden.
Chapter Fourteen
Karen makes her way to a few camps and finally reaches La Ciotat, a camp in southern France. As she moves along with other refugees, she hears of the atrocities of the genocide. One by one she learns of the demise of her aunts and uncles. Karen feels paralyzed and hopeless, haunted by the events of the war that she did not even experience firsthand. Then, Karen is saved by a simple interaction with a child. She finds that she is a natural caregiver, and her new role of caring for young refugees breathes new life into her. Karen then receives word that her mother and brothers are dead, but her father may be alive.
Chapter Fifteen
Karen is buoyed by the news of her father, and she renews her search for her past. She joins many of her fellow refugees in their desire to get to Palestine, convinced that if her father is alive, he will go there too. Boats organized by Mossad ferry as many refugees from France to Palestine as they can, but they are severely hampered by the British. The Palestinian Arabs do not want the refugees pouring into Palestine and the British want to appease the Arab people because they need oil from the Arab countries of the Middle East. The Mossad boats that are caught by the British are escorted to another refugee camp.
Analysis
Karen’s early life in Germany is described in idyllic terms and her home is comfortable and happy. The upbeat and cheery details of her life in Cologne stand out from the rest of the book because it is one of the few times that such positive language is used. This reflects Karen’s ability to overcome the ugliness of the war later in her life. Her picturesque home and family are taken from her, but she is never made cynical by this cruelty. She retains her ability to find beauty everywhere.
Karen has inherited her tendency to focus on the good in a situation from her father Johann. However, for Johann, this streak of optimism proves disastrous during the war. An academic and astute observer of human nature, Johann observes the rising anti-Semitism of 1938 and concludes that the current wave of anti-Semitism will pass, just as all the others have. His optimism further leads him to believe that he and his family will undoubtedly be safe from the current wave running through Germany. He convinces himself that since Jewish people are entwined in the academic and artistic greatness of Germany, he has nothing to fear. But Johann has badly misread the Nazis and the German people and his miscalculation results in the total destruction of his family. Johann represents many other Jewish people across Europe who likewise saw their freedom erode in the leadup to World War II. Over time, he sees his control over his situation slipping away and watches incredulously as his country spins out of control. But at a crucial moment Johann is given a way out that only the most privileged Jewish people in Europe were given: deny your Jewish identity and you can go. Yet Johann nonetheless cannot bring himself to deny his identity as a Jew. Johann’s decision is powerfully symbolic of the many impossible choices European Jews faced during World War II. Johann’s story also shows how a combination of faith and inaction can be deadly, a lesson that Palestinian Jewish people like Ari have taken to heart.
Aage and Meta Hansen are foils to the cruelty and oppression of the German Nazis. They risk their freedom and safety to keep Karen safe. While concentration camps are filling, unbeknownst to the Hansens, and Karen’s immediate and extended family members are being killed, they provide a beautiful life for the young girl. In a similar way to everyone who meets Karen, they fall in love with her and are willing to uproot their lives to keep her safe. As she gets older, Karen is distressed by forgetting the faces of her family members and starting to lose her memories of her life in Cologne. Here too, Karen’s story is representative of so many other orphan children of the war. She knows that she is Jewish and that she was told never to speak of it, but she does not know why. Karen searches the bible for answers and only comes up with more questions. Just how much she has forgotten about her family is apparent when Karen wants to identify herself as Danish and remain with the Hansens. But Karen is too pure of heart to push questions about her identify aside and continue living in comfort. She is compelled to find out about her past, even if it means doing it herself. Her innate integrity causes her to part from loving parents a second time and she leaves the Hansens.
Karen is deeply affected when she begins hearing stories of the Nazi extermination camps. Uris uses Karen’s discovery of the genocide as a way to share the morbid details of how the Nazi plan for genocide evolved, from its beginnings at shooting ranges to the horrifying and brutal efficiency of the gas chambers. These stories make Karen want to close the door on her Judaism and return to the safety and beauty of her life with the Hansens. As Karen learns of the torture and cruelty that took place in the camps, her natural inclination to see the good in people is stripped away and she sinks into a deep depression. However, with the possibility that her father may be alive and her new knowledge of Palestine, Karen recovers. As it has for so many European Jews, the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine completely changes Karen’s life. The freedom from bondage represented by Palestine gives her reason to hope. Now when she reads the bible, she feels that she is finding the answers that once alluded her. When Karen learns the news that she will sail to Palestine on a ship called Star of David, a symbol that represents great strength for the Jewish people, she is elated. Karen’s Jewishness has changed from a liability, and something she only ever associated with death, to a source of strength and a symbol of survival.
