The Devil’s Arithmetic

Jane Yolen’s book, The Devil’s Arithmetic, is a time-warp fantasy story. It was mentioned in the last chapter on fantasy and science fiction books, and I thought it was something I might find interesting. I really enjoy historical fiction books, and this book seemed like a great way to read a book that was an overall fantasy (and get to check it off as a fantasy story on my grid!) but that appealed to my love of history. It was a great choice!

The book starts out in the present with thirteen year-old Hannah and her family celebrating the Passover Seder. Her family keeps telling her that all of the rituals are to remember, but she doesn’t understand what they mean by that and why it is so important. When she is chosen to open the door so that the prophet Elijah, instead of seeing the hall outside of the door, she has been transported to a house looking out into a field. She’s not sure where she is, but she is sure that it is some kind of cruel joke or dream. She comes to find out that she is a Jewish girl named Chaya living in a village in Poland. She and her new family, along with the rest of her village, are stopped by the Nazis on their way to a wedding, and packed into cars and sent to a concentration camp. There they are forced to work and some of the others die or are killed. Chaya is not chosen to die, but trades places with another girl who is. It is at this time that she is transported back to the present, where she learns that some of the people she met in the story are her family members.

Yolen provides an Epilogue with useful background for readers not familiar with the events of with Judaism. She talks about which details in the story are true, and which were made up. The Epilogue helps readers to tie everything together.

It was interesting to see this period of time from a different point of view. I remember reading a lot of books about World War Two and the Holocaust when I was younger (Molly was my favorite American Girl doll), and whenever I learned about the Holocaust, I always wondered why the Jews didn’t try to escape, why they didn’t try to do something. This book did a wonderful job of juxtaposing Hannah, who starts out with a lot of the same questions and suggestions as I have, with all of the other Jews. Hannah starts out trying to warn everyone about the ovens and the killing and six million Jews dead, but her aunt Gitl warns her not to scare people. In the cattle cars on the way to the camp, Hannah yells in exasperation, “we must do something. And quickly. I know where they’re taking us….I am…I am…from the future” (78). The Rabbi quickly disregards what she’s saying and tells everyone that all they can do is pray. There are multiple times in the book when Hannah suggests they run away or fight back, but other prisoners present reasons for why that is not feasible. Hannah seems to represent what people during the future think when they think back on the events. Her aunt Gitl often has to explain to her how the Jews felt during the events—why they complied and why they didn’t fight back. It’s always important to remember that hindsight is 20:20. As Hannah starts to lose her memories from the future and become more and more Chaya and less Hannah, she starts to think like the other people in the camp. “She thought what her knowledge of the ovens, of the brutal guards, of names like Auschwitz and Dachau could really do for them here, naked and weaponless, except to take away that moment by moment of hope” (91). It is here that she really begins to understand and think like the others. By the end of the book, the reader really begins to understood why the people in the camp did what they did. The girl Rivka, who helps Hannah and her friends in the camp, says that there must be some reason God is letting this tragedy happen. There was so much hope in her statement that I had never really thought about before. It was such a new way to think about the events, and it was interesting to see the ways in which they tried to comfort themselves.

Two main themes in this book are remembering and words. The whole reason Hannah is transported to 1942 is because she doesn’t understand what her grandfather and family are telling her when they tell her that the Seder is about remembering. She has to go through the events in order to remember. As she starts experiencing what others went through, she begins forgetting about her old life in America. Only at the end does she begin to remember her life as Hannah. Remembering keeps coming up again and again in the story. When her aunt Gitl tells Hannah that she is part of a plan to escape, Gitl says “Promise me, Chaya, you will remember” (144). She is promising that she will remember not to tell anyone about the plan, but this is also related to the bigger picture—she must remember what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust.

Words also play a huge role in the book. Euphemisms are used in the camp much like they are used in The Giver for dying. Materials are organized, instead of stolen; people are chosen for processing, instead of chosen to be killed. Yolen shows how words can be used for a variety of purposes. Words have power, like when Hannah is scolded for telling the villagers what the Nazis will do to the Jews (“How can you talk like that? Your words will fly up to Heaven and call down the Angel of Death, Lilith’s bridegroom, with his poisoned sword” [66]). Words can kill, like when one of the soldiers says that he will kill the next person who speaks (75). Words in the prayers are also a great comfort when they are in the camp; they pray when people die and when they are afraid.