The Cage

For months after Yulek and Faygele leave, they hear nothing from them, because the ghetto still receives “no news” from the outside world (98). Increasingly, Riva notices signs advertising an extra loaf of bread for those who volunteer to leave for the labor camps. Eventually, the S.S. ghetto commander gives a speech, which workers are required to attend, in which he encourages Jews to leave Lodz for the labor camps; he wants to “protect [them] from the Russians” because the S.S. does not want them “to suffer” (99). Riva believes he sounds honest and caring in his speech, so that the question of whether or not to leave grows only more complicated for the Jews who hear his words and his apparent sympathy.

Mr. Berkenwald finds Riva, though, and begs her: “do not trust the Nazis. Hide” (100). His advice spreads in the crowd. The soldiers continue to take people away from Lodz, even pulling those who leave their homes into wagons, and their “screams and cries fill the warm summer air” (101). Everyone ceases to attend work, and they remain anxious throughout the day. Food rations begin to run out.

One day, the Nazis come earlier than usual, at dawn, yelling “Jews, out!” (102).