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Chapter 15
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Devil’s Arithmetic, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory
Sacrifice
Jewish Culture and Identity
Hope
Summary
Analysis
As Hannah spends more time in camp, even Choosings become routine. She continues to learn ways to avoid attracting attention, even though the convoluted rules seem like crazy math problems to her—the Devil’s arithmetic. One day, Hannah and Shifre daydream about their favorite foods and realize that they struggle to remember their past lives before the camp.
Hannah and Shifre begin to wonder about the blokova. Rivka says that the blokova lost two of her fingers because she let the Jewish prisoners get out of control two times. Shifre suggests that maybe they should help her lose a third finger, but Rivka says it’s better to leave the task of making plans to adults. Suddenly, they hear that the commandant is coming again, even though he was just there the previous day.
Rivka remains the most pragmatic and cautious one in the group, putting survival above all else. Her memory of how her family members died has taught her how to act without emotion in the camp, calmly assessing the best methods for staying alive and avoiding attracting attention.
Themes
Once again, the children rush toward the garbage dump to hide from the commandant. Hannah sees that Reuven has not run yet, and as the commandant’s car comes, Reuven seems to be frozen in fear. The commandant gets out of the car and asks Reuven if he’s injured.
In contrast to Rivka’s air of detachment, Reuven gives in to his fear of the Nazis, and it leaves him literally paralyzed for a few moments. Once again, Hannah shows that she’s willing to make sacrifices now by potentially endangering herself to try to help Reuven.
Themes
The commandant asks Hannah where Reuven’s mother is. Hannah says that she’s dead, then, remembering Rivka’s rule about not mentioning death in the camps, specifies that Reuven’s mother died long ago, when he was born. The commandant asks Hannah if she’s Reuven’s sister, and she shakes her head. He says she’s lucky, then takes Reuven into his car, saying a young boy should be with his mother.
Hannah shows that she has been paying careful attention to Rivka’s lessons—she’s learned why it’s important to remember. Hannah has already mentioned that Reuven’s mother is dead, so when the commandant says that he will take Reuven to his mother, everyone except Reuven understands that this means Reuven will die.
Themes
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That evening, smoke comes out of the chimneys. Reuven doesn’t come back, and Hannah feels she’s responsible. Rivka assures Hannah that she did all she could, and she would’ve only gotten herself killed if she said she was Reuven’s sister.
Hannah learns that even remembering all of Rivka’s rules isn’t enough to save everyone. Rivka reminds her that it’s important to let people go—letting others go to allow oneself to continue living can also be an important sacrifice.
Themes
Hannah wants to fight back against the Nazis, figuring it’s better to die that way than in the chimneys. But Rivka says they have no weapons, so their best option is to keep working in an attempt to survive.
Hannah has temporarily lost hope and just wants to die in the least horrible way, but Rivka encourages her to hold on to hope, believing that it is still worthwhile to try to survive.
Themes
That night in the barracks, Fayge tells a story about a boy named Israel who leads a small group of children to fight a werewolf with the heart of Satan. After Israel defeats the werewolf, he takes pity on the heart, leaving it to the earth, which swallows it up. Hannah feels that at the moment, she and the others are all in the belly of a werewolf.
Previously, the other members of the shtetl thought that Hannah’s stories about the Holocaust were just fairy tales. Now, Fayge tells a real fairy tale to help everyone better make sense of their current situation.
Themes
