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The Devil's Arithmetic is an historical novel written by American author Jane Yolen in 1988. The book is about a Jewish girl, Hannah, who lives in New Rochelle. During a Passover Seder, Hannah is transported back in time to Poland in 1942, during World War II, and she is sent to a Nazi concentration camp. She learns the importance of knowing about the past.
The Devil's Arithmetic won the National Jewish Book Award (in the category for children's literature) in 1989, was nominated for the Nebula award in 1988, and was made into a film starring Kirsten Dunst and Brittany Murphy in 1999.
1942, Poland
Summary
Hannah Stern is a Jewish girl; she lives in the late 20th century. She is bored by her relatives' stories about the past, and she is not looking forward to the Passover Seder. When Hannah opens the door,(symbolically to the prophet) Elijah, she is transported back in time to the year 1941, during World War II, to Poland. At that time and place, the people believe she is Chaya Abramowicz, who is recovering from cholera, a disease that killed her parents. The strange remarks that she makes about the future and her inability to recognize her "aunt" Gitl and "uncle" Shmuel are blamed on the fever. Then, at her uncle's wedding, the Nazis come to transport the entire population of the village to a concentration camp, which is in the area of Donavin, and only Hannah knows the horrors they will face: starvation, mistreatment, forced labor, and finally execution. She struggles to survive at the camps, with the help of a girl named Rivka. At the concentration camp, Gitl, Hannah, Shmuel, and a few other men try to escape. They are caught and shot (With the exception of Gitl, Hannah, and Yitzchak). Yitzchak escapes while Hannah and Gitl return to their barracks. Later, when Rivka is about to be sent to the gas chamber for not working, Hannah takes her place. She goes to a gas chamber and is presumably gassed. Suddenly she is transported back to her family's Seder, and while recounting her experience to her aunt, the aunt reveals that when she was in the concentration camps, she was called Rivka and was saved by a girl named Chaya Abramowicz. Speculation has been drawn on the fact that, because Chaya (Hannah) was actually in control of herself in this assumed dream, if she had not saved Rivka's life, she might not have come back to the seder, and her aunt, to America and live happily!
Citations
Yolen, Jane. The Devil's Arithmetic. New York: Scholastic, 2000. Print.
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