The Cage

Chapter 5 begins a month later, when the Jewish section is officially called a “ghetto” and the gates are “shut tight” (25). With machinery and other resources removed, the people of the ghetto begin to suffer, and Riva and her family march to the Judenrat, the Jewish government appointed by the Nazis, to demand change. Though “kitchens to supply soup and bread, hospitals, schools, factories” come as a result of this protest, they do not last long (26).

Riva’s little brother, Laibele, contracts tuberculosis and must stay in bed all day. The doctor’s prescriptions for fresh air and good nutrition are impossible, and his isolation further diminishes his hope. Riva tries to encourage him and sits by his bed to “tell him what is happening in our barbed-wire cage, what life is like outside his room, at the shop, at our secret study groups” (28). She tries to believe in her own encouraging words: “This day will come, my darling brother. You’ll see, you’ll see. We’ll walk out of this cage, free to build a new life, a new world. No more hunger. Freedom, happiness. A world of brotherhood. A world of love and peace” (29).However, at work, where she and her mother sew coats for German soldiers, she seems less certain.