Throughout this section, there is an obvious trend.  Jews are having more and more rights and privileges taken from them.  The conditions are worsening, and winter is coming.  Food shortages are increasing, and smugglers are being punished.  Misha and Janina are sneaking through a wall around the ghetto.  They are smuggling food, but it is becoming increasingly dangerous.

I keep thinking about how helpless I would feel if I was a Jew.  I think I would keep wanting to think, “It is going to get better if I just hold on a little longer.”  The truth is that it is not getting better.  It is only getting worse, and they just keep dying, and there is nowhere to go.  There is no escape to safety.  It makes me really respect the struggles those who suffered through the holocaust went through.  They truly seem unimaginable.

Janina’s mother dies near the end of my reading.  It is really sad, but I wonder if she died because she gave up.  It seems like she gave up a long time ago.  I think the way Mr. Milgram reacts shows that he is set apart among the people. He is of a higher quality because he takes the time to give his wife a dignified burial.  Of course, this was only because he had pills to bribe the guard.  This idea of Mr. Milgram having more integrity than most is also demonstrated by his reaction to another family moving into their home.  He not only does not fight back, but he offers them a mattress of their own.  He does not let his circumstances turn him into an animal.  In every way he can, he maintains his integrity and humanity in the way he lives and treats others.