Prisoner B-3087 By Alan Gratz

Alan Gratz astonishing true story “Prisoner B-3087”, takes place in the times of the Holocaust throughout different camps. The main character, Yanek, based on Jack Gruener, is a Jew whom was split up from his family. Alone, he must survive the Nazis. One thing he keeps with him throughout the book is hope can get you through hard times. From the start of the book Yanek had been trying to hold onto the happy things about life. A Jewish tradition is having a Bar Mitzvah when someone turns thirteen. It's an entrance into manhood. Even though things weren't in good Krakow they still had a mini party for Yanek. “Suddenly it didn't matter that we weren't in a Synagogue, that we didn't have a feast waiting for us. The smile on my father's face made me proud.” (Gratz 47). Another example is when he almost turned himself into the Nazis but Yanek thought it through and decided his parents would want him to keep fighting. “No I thought… my parents would not want that for me. In a place of my pain I felt the stirring of determination. I would not give up. I would not turn myself in. No matter what the Nazis did to me, no matter what they took from me, I would survive.” (Gratz 59).

When he is at his fourth Camp, Birkenau, Nazi guards push him and a group of men into a gas chamber. He was ready to give up, but then instead of gas, water poured out. “I had been ready to die but then when water came out I was born again. I had survived and I would keep surviving” (gratz 135). Another event that happens is when a prisoner’s son was turning thirteen. Yanek volunteered to help say a prayer for the stranger´s Bar Mitzvah. “We are alive. We are alive and that is all that matters. We cannot let them tear us from the pages of the world” (Gratz