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Chapter 62
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Between Shades of Gray, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Morality, Integrity, and Sacrifice
Strength and Identity
The Power of Art
Genocide
Women and Mothers
Summary
Analysis
They travel in the truck all morning, and eventually stop and are allowed to relieve themselves in the grass at a field. Kretszky is also on the truck with them. They then stop at a train station and are loaded onto cars. The bald man instructs them to stand at the opening and look uncomfortable so the car appears full. It works, and though the car is filthy, they are not as cramped as last time. At the last moment, a few more people are shoved in, including a woman and her very sick daughter. The girl with the doll tells Lina the NKVD shot her doll and then beat her when she cried. She says her name is Janina. She tells Lina she saw Lina’s “boyfriend” give her something, and Lina shows Janina and Elena the stone. The passengers share rumors about the war, and hear that the Japanese bombed America, and that America and Britain have declared war on Japan. They also hear that the Soviets invaded Finland.
Once again the deportees are forced to endure the horror of the train cars. Since people are living in close quarters without a chance to bathe, diseases run rampant. And for every train car on the train, there is presumably another set of characters just like the ones in the novel—more families ripped apart, more suffering and sadness endured. The obvious emotions between Lina and Andrius are evident even to Janina, a young girl who is traumatized by the “murder” of her doll by a nasty NKVD officer. The deportees are heartened by any news of a war, since it increases the chances that someone will invade and end their suffering at the hands of Stalin.
Themes
