Minor Characters
Father
Hannah’s father brings Hannah to the Passover Seder where Hannah gets sent back in time to the Holocaust. He was raised in part by Hannah’s great aunt, her Aunt Eva.
Shifre
Shifre is Hannah’s friend, whom she meets after she travels back in time to 1942 Poland. At the concentration camp, Shifre tries to learn Rivka’s rules for survival, but she ends up chosen for death anyway, highlighting the cruel and arbitrary nature of life in the camps.
Esther
Esther is a friend Hannah meets in Poland in 1942. At the concentration camp, Esther refuses to learn the rules, which leads Hannah to learn the difficult lesson that sometimes survival means letting other people go.
Rachel
Rachel is a girl around Hannah’s age who lives in Gitl and Shmuel’s shtetl. She wants to be Hannah’s good friend, but she has a medical condition that affects her breathing, and she dies during the crowded train ride to the concentration camp.
The Rabbi
The rabbi in Gitl and Shmuel’s shtetl is a gullible man who takes all of the Nazi promises at face value. His fate demonstrates the dangers of just following orders, as he’s one of the first people from Hannah’s shtetl who is killed.
Aaron
Aaron is Hannah’s younger brother in the present day. Unlike Hannah, he is not old enough to drink wine at the Seder, but Aaron still participates in the ritual. He’s responsible for reading the Four Questions—a ritual that the youngest child who can read performs at every Seder.
Reuven
Reuven is one of Yitzchak’s young children. He dies in the concentration camp when he can’t run away from the commandant fast enough. His death inspires Yitzchak, Shmuel, and others to make an escape attempt.
Tzipporah
Tzipporah is one of Yitzchak’s young children. She dies, seemingly of starvation, in the concentration camp.
Wolfe
Wolfe is Rivka’s brother who seems to be on the brink of death but somehow survives his time in a concentration camp, making him Rivka’s only other family member to do so.
Grandpa Dan
Grandpa Dan is the grandfather that Hannah initially prefers over Grandpa Will, because unlike Grandpa Will, Grandpa Dan didn’t experience the Holocaust firsthand and so was not traumatized in the same way.