Salt to the Sea

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Throughout this WW2 novel, we realize how much bigger the world is and our small part in it. War takes away personality–with the goal to dehumanize–just like salt blends and dissolves into the sea. Florian steals the key and map to the Amber Room to take revenge on Dr. Lange. He steals the amber swan to take revenge on Hitler. However, by the end of Salt to the Sea, Florian realizes that he is caught in a vicious cycle of revenge. He realizes that all of his lying and killing was in vain. In part, this is because he believes that both he and the amber swan will end up at the bottom of the Baltic Sea as the Wilhlem Gustloff ship sinks. Moreover, he realizes that responding to lies with more lies isn't good for anyone and only creates more pain. In the end, Florian reflects that revenge is a useless cycle, since it tries to answer pain by inflicting more pain. Through Florian’s character, Sepetys develops the theme of revenge in the novel. The writing in the book was so phenomenal. The way that Ruta laid out the story through her writing was so just beautiful. I felt like every single word in this novel had a purpose. There were these sentences that she would lace throughout the different points-of-view to connect them that I just thought was so brilliant.

Emilia Stozek Character Analysis in Salt to the Sea | LitCharts Emilia Stozek Character Analysis in Salt to the Sea | LitCharts

My heart ached for the girl. What had she seen? And deep down I knew the truth. Hitler was pushing out Polish girls like Emilia to make room for “Baltic Germans,” people with German heritage. Like me. My father was Lithuanian but my mother’s family had German roots. That’s why we were able to flee from Stalin into the barbed arms of Hitler. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland from the west. On September 17, 1939, Russia invaded Poland from the east. I remembered these dates. Two warning nations gripped Poland like girls fighting over a doll. One held the leg, the other the arm. They pulled so hard that one day, the head popped off. The Nazis sent our people to ghettos and concentration camps. The Soviets sent our people to gulags and Siberia. I was nine years old when it started. People changed. Faces shrived and sunk, like baked apples. Neighbors spoke in whispers. I watched them play their games. I observed them when they weren’t looking. I learned. But how long could I play this game? A ploy of war both outside and inside. What would happen if I actually made it to the West? Would I be able to reveal myself as Emilia Stożek, a girl from Lwów? Would Germany be safe for me? Once the war ended, which side would be the right side for a Pole?” The book was honored as a finalist of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award in 2017 [6] and was listed as a 2017 Best Children's Book of the Year with Outstanding Merit from the Children's Book Committee of Bank Street College of Education. [7] Characters [ edit ] I moved from body to body, treating blisters, wounds, frostbite. But I had no treatment for what plagued people most the most. Fear." Joana, p. 40Montagne, Renee (February 17, 2016). "More Died On This WWII Ship Than On The Titanic And Lusitania Combined". NPR . Retrieved March 22, 2020. Alfred’s character offers one perspective of the German youth mindset and his naivety plays into the role of propaganda during the war.

Salt to the Sea Study Guide | GradeSaver Salt to the Sea Study Guide | GradeSaver

Salt to the Sea also provides insight into what was once Prussia and how Poland fared during the war. Introduced to Lithuanian culture and history, I know that while traveling in Vilnius and Kaunas, I thought of Joana. On board the Gustloff, Joana works in the infirmary while Florian hides from the Nazi soldiers who are looking for him. Emilia gives birth to her baby, Halinka. Suddenly, Russian torpedoes hit the Gustloff. Within an hour the ship sinks and thousands die. Joana and Florian escape on a lifeboat with Halinka and Klaus, a young boy who traveled with their group. Emilia ends up on a raft with Alfred. Emilia reveals she is Polish and Alfred tries to kill her. The reader learns that despite Alfred's racist ideology, his love interest, Hannelore, is Jewish. In the end both Alfred and Emilia die.

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The Nazis couldn’t stop the wind and the snow. The Russians couldn’t take the sun or the stars.” Emilia, p. 90 The sinking of the Titanic may be the most infamous naval disaster in history, and the torpedoing of the Lusitania the most infamous in wartime. But with death counts of about 1,500 and 1,200 respectively, both are dwarfed by what befell the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German ocean liner that was taken down by a Soviet sub on Jan. 30, 1945, killing 9,343 people—most of them war refugees, about 5,000 of them children.