Previous
Pages 72–80
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Once, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling
Innocence and Ignorance
Antisemitism vs. Human Dignity
Family
Morality, Violence, and Complicity
Summary
Analysis
Just when Felix thinks that no adult—“not Mum and Dad, not Mother Minka, not Father Ludwik, not God, not Jesus, not the Virgin Mary, not the Pope, not Adolf Hitler”—can save children from the Nazis, a man (Barney), “wearing a Jewish armband” but “speaking Nazi,” confronts the Nazi aiming a gun at Zelda.
Witnessing the Nazis’ destruction of families, Felix comes close to losing his belief in adults’ power to protect the children in their care—though the litany of adults he thinks might want to protect children shows his ignorance, in that he still doesn’t realize that Adolf Hitler is the architect of the violence around him. A heroic intervention from a Jewish man who can “speak[] Nazi” (i.e., German) restores Felix’s faith in adults, however.
Themes
The Nazi aims at the man (Barney), who shows the Nazi a “leather bag” he’s carrying. The Nazi yanks on the man’s beard while onlookers laugh. Then the Nazi walks to the Jewish parents protesting their children being taken and aims at a woman’s head. Felix tries to get up and stop him but falls, too sick to walk. The Nazi kills the woman. The man (Barney) who saved Zelda tries to lead her away, but she yells that she won’t leave without Felix. Felix vomits and faints.
The Nazi soldier from whom Barney saves Zelda participates in both individual sadistic violence and systemic evil: though Barney’s mysterious “leather bag” prevents the Nazi from killing him, the Nazi choses to hurt and publicly humiliate him in sadistic fashion before murdering a Jewish mother. In contrast with Mother Minka and Dodie, who committed individual violent acts but had good overall characters, the Nazi soldier both commits violence and is dedicated to an evil cause; the difference between Mother Minka and Dodie on the one hand and the Nazi soldier on the other shows the importance of context to judging people’s actions. Zelda’s refusal to leave a sick Felix—even to go with a man who saved her life—shows Zelda’s loyalty and the bond between the children.
Themes
Felix wakes, sees candlelight, and remembers the candle Mother Minka used to carry when she visited the dormitory at night to discipline misbehaving boys. Wondering whether he’s returned to the orphanage somehow, he sits up. A familiar-looking man (Barney) pushes him down and tells him to rest. Felix remembers that this is the man with the “magic bag.” Zelda comes up and tells Felix that the man’s name is Barney. Felix faints again.
Felix’s extreme disorientation shows how sick he has been while traveling with Zelda. His sickness only emphasizes his determination, bravery, and moral goodness in caring for Zelda while impaired himself; by emphasizing Felix’s virtues, the novel indirectly points out the hateful irrationality of antisemitism.
Themes
Felix wakes, thinks he’s lost his notebook, and starts yelling for it. Zelda lights a candle; a “silver heart” necklace glints on her neck. Barney tells Felix that his notebook is safe; Zelda adds that they’ve saved his letters but thrown away his hat. Barney makes Felix drink water. When Felix coughs, Zelda asks whether he'll die. Felix wishes he could find his parents, who he believes could cure him, but he knows they’re in danger from the Nazis. He tries to tell Barney about the danger his parents are in and says, “Don’t believe the notebook. The stories in the notebook aren’t true.”
After waking, Felix’s first thoughts are about his notebook, which represents the love of stories he inherited from his parents. Yet the violence and cruelty Felix has witnessed since leaving the orphanage make him more aware of the distance between children’s stories and reality: he still loves his notebook, but he doesn’t want Barney to take it as a guide for action. Though its significance is not yet clear, Felix’s sudden noticing of Zelda’s “silver heart” necklace foreshadows that the necklace may be important.
Themes
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Later, crying wakes Felix. A little boy is sobbing. Barney calls the boy Henryk and promises to care for him until he’s reunited with his parents. When Henryk stops crying, Barney tells him he can keep going—a curly-haired girl named Ruth will comfort him—but Henryk says he’s done. Barney checks Felix’s temperature and offers him soup. Felix refuses the soup, thinking that Barney’s an idiot: he should let the children find their parents, not promise far-off reunions. Felix tries to invent a story about a child finding his parents but can only picture Nazis shooting at people, “including kids who just want a lift.” He wonders whether his parents tried to hitchhike and then tries not to think about it.
Readers can tell Felix still doesn’t fully understand the danger he and the other children are in, as he thinks Barney should allow the little Jewish boy Henryk to go search for his parents in Nazi-occupied Poland. Yet Felix is revising the falsely optimistic stories he told himself to explain the violence he witnessed on his journeys. For example, his comment about Nazis shooting at “kids who just want a life” indicates that he now knows the soldier who shot at him didn’t do so by accident. Felix is thus at a transitional point, understanding more than he used to but not enough to make maximally safe, wise decisions.
Themes
Later, Barney wakes Felix and asks whether he can read the children a story from Felix’s notebook. Felix, donning his glasses, sees children all around his bed: Zelda, Henryk, Ruth, a young boy gnawing on “a piece of wood” (Moshe), a girl “with a bandaged arm” (Chaya), and others. Barney says that Zelda told him that Felix has good stories and that the children would like to hear them. Several children agree, but Felix refuses. When Barney says it’s fine for Felix to refuse, because the stories really matter to him, Felix thinks that they don’t—he hates them now, because while he was writing fake adventures for his parents, Nazis were grabbing them.
Barney’s request to read from the notebook indicates that Felix’s storytelling ability has value to others: at minimum, it can entertain and give joy to terrified children. Yet now, Felix has turned against stories, because he feels that they blinded him to the truth of his parents’ situation. Meanwhile, Barney seems to have taken on a fatherly role toward the children he’s taken in, acting in loco parentis toward children whose parents the Nazis have killed.
Themes
Barney says that they’re all glad Zelda and Felix have come to live with them. Various children agree, but Felix suspects they’re all sad he refused to share his stories. Barney asks Zelda to tell a story instead. Giving Felix a dirty look, she begins a story about two children, “Zelda and William,” in a mountain castle.
Zelda is angry at Felix for refusing to tell stories, but she still bases her own story on the ones she’s heard from him. Felix’s influence on Zelda both indicates the power of Felix’s imagination and the big brother-little sister relationship they have developed.
Themes
