This text reflects the Nazi invasion of Poland and the Holocaust while incorporating elements of fiction to explore human interiority. While these historical events were observed and recorded, the atrocities of the Holocaust can seem beyond belief; the fictionalizing of historical events makes these distant atrocities immediate for contemporary readers. Upon their return to Łơdź, Ana and Ester discover that even Polish citizens who lived through six years of conflict near the concentration camps have trouble believing the stories from inside. For example, an elderly man—recuperating on an upper floor of a hospital from an attack by an SS officer—refuses to go to the poison gas that awaits him, and a Nazi throws him out the window to his death. In another scene, a young Jewish man must use concrete slabs to pound the skeletons of recently deceased Jews into powder.

These events are described with little foreshadowing, providing a shocking effect that mirrors the reality of atrocity in life: In war, atrocity can arise at any time, often in high frequencies. The perpetrators of these horrific atrocities are, in many ways, ordinary people who are asked to commit crimes to maintain position and power. The ordinary nature of perpetrators of war crimes is highlighted within the text through casual, believable actions to show their humanity, but also their

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