The Devil’s Arithmetic: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

After the evening meal of bread and watery soup, Rivka finds Hannah. Hannah is afraid, but Rivka tells her the Nazis only run the gas chambers during the daytime. Rivka tells Hannah that every member of her family was burned in the chimney for various reasons—the Nazis’ “brutal arithmetic”—except for a brother named Wolfe who is nearly dead. Rivka says that while the Angel of Death hovers over the camp, there are ways to fool him. Prisoners call the doors near the chimney the entrance to Lilith’s Cave, since people who enter them never come out.

Hannah says she thinks the camp is the Devil’s place, but Rivka says God made the Devil, so God is in the camp too. Rivka begins telling Hannah, Shifre, and Esther that the way to survive in camp is to learn the rules and follow them, always smiling and always using identification numbers instead of names. Rivka’s is J18202, which she remembers with a memory trick. Esther doesn’t want to hear any more and walks off. Hannah wants to go get her, but Rivka says that another rule of survival is letting people go.

Rivka tells Hannah and Shifre that the most important rule is to hide in the midden—the garbage dump—whenever the commandant comes to inspect the camp, since children under 14 aren’t supposed to be in the camp. Rivka believes that she, Hannah, and Shifre can pass for old enough, but they have to help the smaller children hide in the dump. Shifre complains about garbage, but Rivka says it’s better than being sent to “the line”—the one for people who will be killed and go up the chimneys of the gas ovens.

Rivka tells Hannah more about camp, like how Nazis take the good Jewish shoes and ship them off to Germany, which is why the prisoners have such bad shoes. Hannah works out a memory trick to recall her identification number. Hannah tries to find Esther before they’re rounded up into the barracks for the night, but she’s unsuccessful.