Quote 4
“One time I was going to see Ilzecki. This was late in 1941, I think. His house was very near to a train station … And it was going on there something TERRIBLE.” (I.4.82)
Vladek narrowly escapes the anti-Semitic violence sweeping through Sosnowiec. In this particular episode, Jews have been rounded up at random and beaten for no reason.
Quote 5
“She was taken with everybody else who was going to be deported to four apartment houses that were emptied to make a sort of prison….They put thousands of people there … it was so crowded that some of them actually suffocated … no food … no toilets. It was terrible.” (I.4.94)
This is just one of the many descriptions of the horrible conditions Jews had to suffer when they were incarcerated.
Quote 6
“We walked in the direction of Sosnowiec – but where to go?” (I.5.127)
The Nazis had so effectively infiltrated all aspects of life in Sosnowiec that Vladek and Anja had nowhere to go, even though they had escaped being shipped off to Auschwitz.