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Chapter 19
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
Sometime after the Seder dinner, Aunt Eva tells Hannah the rest of the story. Only two people from Chaya’s shtetl survived: Yitzchak, who actually did escape and joined a resistance force, and Gitl, who survived until the camp was liberated, even though she only weighed 73 pounds.
Even with all her sacrifices to help others, Gitl someone managed to survive until the end of the war. While luck played a role for everyone, Gitl’s devotion to sacrificing her own food to help others seems to have given her hope and motivation to live, allowing her to keep going.
Themes
Yitzchak and Gitl both moved to Israel after the war, never marrying anyone but remaining good friends and living into their 70s. Yitzchak became a politician, and Gitl eventually founded an adoption agency that she named CHAYA.
Yitzchak and Gitl each continue to help others even after surviving the camp, with Yitzchak devoting his life to public service, and Gitl continuing her work of helping children. Despite the heavy toll of the Holocaust, Yitzchak’s and Gitl’s happy endings represent the survival of the Jewish people and culture.
Themes
