The Light in Hidden Places

“It was a perfect childhood. And I hated it.”

Stefania displays her sense of humor with an ironic quip about her childhood. Her childhood was perfect, yet, ironically—or unexpectedly—the idyllic atmosphere made her hate it. The quote is also tragically ironic because Stefania’s life in the big city will soon change in horrible, hateful ways.

“‘I hope one day you will be dying of thirst,’ I told her, ‘so that, then, someone can deny you water the same way you did to them!’”

Stefania uses a brash tone and contemptuous diction to express her disdain for the woman with the Russian rifle who won’t let her or the others drink from the well. The interaction exemplifies Stefania boldness and provides an early example of a cruel woman character.

“Sadness can become cruelty. Remember that, ketzele. We do not know what happened to them in Germany. We should pity those women.”

Mrs. Diamant teaches Stefania a critical lesson about cruelty. Stefania remembers the lesson later on when it comes to hiding Malwina and her two kids. The quote concerns Rosa and Regina—two touchy women who come and stay with the Diamants. Arguably, Rosa and Regina foreshadow the crueler German nurses, Karin and Ilse, who come and live with Stefania and Helena in the apartment cottage.

“Help can come when it’s least expected, and that’s good to remember, because it means you’re never really alone.”

The quote reveals the motif of chance and improvisation. There’s a chance someone might hurt Stefania and her 13 Jews, but there’s also a chance they might help them. Stefania learns how to take help however or wherever she can get it—from a handsome Polish police officer to a somewhat caring SS man.

“I pushed Izio into some deep, deep place inside me and built a dam across my sadness. I would deal with it later, when I knew how.”

Izio’s death traumatizes Stefania, and she deals with the trauma by hiding it. The “dam” symbolizes Stefania’s choice to compartmentalize and store her anguish. She can’t confront it now: She has to survive. The idea of trauma returns at times, and Cameron says Stefania had PTSD.

“On that day, I began the fourth part of my education in Przemyśl. It was wrong to paint all men the same color. Whether they be Jewish or Polish. Or even German.”

After Dr. Becker takes good care of Helena, Stefania realizes that not all men are bad. She uses figurative language. She’s not painting “all men the same color”—there’s no paintbrush proper—but she’s trying not to generalize all men as shady. However, most of the men she meets, for one reason or another, come across as cruel or suspect.

“Helena laughs, and in a world where death is a shadow at the edge of every light, I discover that I have to smile.”

The light symbolism returns, and the proximity between its two polar meanings makes Stefania laugh. Light comes with danger or “death,” but it remains light. The deadly shadow doesn’t fully consume light. There’s still hope and life.

“Every unlikely way the Gestapo could have found Max and my sister in the apartment is running through my head like a cinema film I’d never want to see.”

Stefania marks the stress and trauma of her situation, and she alludes to chance. She’s aware there are endless ways for the police to discover the situation, and she uses a simile to compare it to a movie she doesn’t want to see—bringing in the motif of witnessing.

“Suddenly I wonder if this man thinks I am a prostitute.”

The speculation that Stefania is a sex worker occurs a few times throughout the story. The possibility reinforces Stefania’s femme fatale characterization and her allure over several men. Yet Stefania is not a sex worker and doesn’t actually manipulate men with sex.

“You stupid, stupid little girl? Do you want to die? Do you think you’ve lived long enough? Well, I haven’t. I plan to be around years from now, and I won’t throw my life away for some Jew I’ve never even heard of! You might as well ask me to jump out your window. And you can jump out of it, too. It might be quicker than being shot.”

Emilika’s diction—her word choice—reinforces her contempt for Stefania’s idea about hiding Jews. Emilika calls her friend “stupid” and “little” and says Stefania might as well tell her to jump out a window. Emilika doesn’t want to take the chance and help Jews. Yet maybe she would if she didn’t seem to think Stefania was a spy. As for Stefania, she doesn’t completely trust Emilika either. While Emilika reacts negatively to helping Jews, she does help Stefania in other ways.

“Death really isn’t so terrible, I think. It’s losing the chance to live that’s sad. Like I did with Izio. Izio died because I didn’t come in time to save him. But what if I had never tried to come? If I live through this war, can I live with having done nothing, or will my life be poisoned with regret?”

Stefania is an introspective person who thinks about chance, death, and life. She’s aware there’s a chance that hiding Jews might fail and everyone will die, but she has to take that chance—she has to try. If she doesn’t risk her life and display bravery and sacrifice, she will “regret” the betrayal of her conscience.

“But I can do it! I’ve played there before, and the guards don’t pay any attention to the children. Even when we go right up to the fence.”

Helena reveals her courage and determination by telling Helena she can communicate with Max easier by kicking a ball through the fence. Helena, too, can manipulate situations. She uses her child status to fool the guards into thinking she’s not a threat to their hateful norms.

“But the Nazis are killing the innocent! Your own people! And in the meantime, you keep ‘order’ so those monsters can have a whole ghetto of victims who are easier to kill!”

The exchange between Stefania and the Jewish policemen in the ghetto echoes a fraught aspect of the Holocaust. The Nazis established Jewish councils and Jewish police to help them manage the genocide. Stefania implies the Jewish policemen are collaborators. They prepare the victims for the evil, monstrous Nazis.

“We do try to save them. By giving the wrong lists, delaying the deportations. Limiting the reprisals caused by people like yourself, so that someone, somewhere, might be saved.”

The Jewish policeman’s response supplies a different perspective on why and how Jews seemingly complied with Nazis. The key word is seemingly. The Jews in charge tried to subvert them subtly—in ways that won’t lead to reprisals or more deaths. The interaction between Stefania and the policemen takes on the tone of a heated debate. They show their kindness by letting her go and not stopping the plan.

“What has this man ever actually done to me? Let me go instead of arresting me, asked me to a café, and been a little too aware that he’s handsome. It’s not his fault that I’ve always got Jews under my bed or following me down the street, or that I’m always afraid and too full of cares to enjoy one second of my life.”

Attraction can be fraught, and Stefania likes Berdecki, and, though he comes across as somewhat predatory or manipulative, he helps her: He doesn’t arrest her. She seems to entertain the thought of dating him, yet sacrifice prevents Stefania from having a romantic life or a romantic life involving someone other than Max.

“So now, I think, they need me to run out and collect some garbage. Or some junk. And while I’m doing that, I can go to the market and spend half my pay and the rest of my day hauling food up the hill. Then I can sweep the floor, wipe that layer of dust from Max’s digging off the stove, cook the dinner, and wash it all up again, then catch a few hours of sleep that are less than I need in a house that smells like sweaty men and an open grave—a house where it’s too dangerous to open a window—before I get up to do it all over again and spend another twelve hours making screws.”

Stefania’s exasperated tone comes across in the extensive list of responsibilities. She has to get food, clean, cover up the extra with junk, get the junk to cover up the extra dirt, work for 12 hours, and find time to sleep. Yet Stefania continues to sacrifice her well-being for the Jews: She keeps her determination to save them.

“You ask me what that was for? You dare to ask me that? I ought to cut you up into a thousand pieces, you snake. You…skunk! Skunk!”

The diction and the exclamation marks convey Stefania’s disgust for Berdecki. Yet what repels Stefania isn’t that he kissed her, it’s that he made it seem like his secret had to do with the Jews—that it was life or death. Berdecki’s indelicate courtship ruins his relationship with Stefania, yet Berdecki doesn’t retaliate against her—he’s not that cruel.

“I am a thief, Mr. Jew, but I am a thief with honor. I am not a killer. Now come with me, and I will watch and tell you when the police have gone.”

Hirsch’s robber brings some humorous irony to his life-or-death escape. He’s a criminal—he steals Hirsch’s money—but he’s a good criminal. He doesn’t kill Hirsch or turn him in, but he serves as his lookout. Hirsch adds to the irony because he planned on someone robbing him.

“The rules of the ghetto always seem to be changing. Bigger. Smaller. No doing business at the fence. This section for workers. This section for nonworkers. Go wherever you want. Go the wrong way and we’ll kill you. And today, we’ll look the other way while you do business at the fence. It can be hard to know where you are. Right now it seems to be heavy guard on the gate, no more crossing of the bridge. But once you get inside, we’re not going to pay much attention to you.”

The fluid rules add to the chancy behavior of Stefania and the other Jews. As the regulations remain in flux, it’s hard to tell when they’re taking a chance or when they’re playing it safe. The change in rules also shows that the Nazis improvised. They made adjustments on the fly, but their resolve to murder Jews and scores of other people stays fixed.

And because he can’t say much else, he grabs my face and kisses both my cheeks. Like his father would have. Or maybe not.”

Stefania and Max’s romance is complicated. Once Izio dies, her relationship with Max develops throughout the story. The quote shows how difficult it can be to tell if a connection is friendly and platonic or something else. The “maybe” reinforces Stefania’s uncertainty.

“He says they have only two nurses left to house, and he doesn’t see why they would each need a bedroom. They can share, while my sister and I stay in our current room. Would that be acceptable?”

Stefania demonstrates improvisation. The Germans arrive and try to take her apartment. Instead of giving up, she thinks of another idea: The German nurses can have one room and Stefania and Helena can have the other. Stefania’s quick thinking saves everyone’s lives.

“They can’t move, or the floor creaks above the nurses. They can’t speak, or someone will hear. They are hungry and cannot groan. They are angry and cannot react. They can’t cough. They can’t sneeze. Or snore. They let the rats crawl over them.”

Repetition reinforces the Jews’ extreme confinement. “They” starts all but one of the sentences in the quote. The sentences can’t move on from the “they,” and the Jews—the “they”—can hardly move at all now that Karin and Ilse are in the house. The Jews have to tolerate agonizing discomfort to stay alive.

“‘Thirteen above, the Nazis below, and you in between,’ says Mrs. Krawiecka. ‘Well, well, Miss Podgórska. You are quite the little manipulator after all.’”

Mrs. Krawiecka notes the irony of Stefania’s situation. The Nazis present themselves as all-powerful and all-knowing, yet the nurses and their company didn’t realize 13 Jews were above them. The “little manipulator” is also ironic. Typically, manipulation is a negative or devious trait. In Stefania’s context, it’s positive. Her knack for twisting and deceiving kept everyone alive.