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Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Milkweed, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Relationships
War, Dehumanization, and Innocence
Ingenuity, Resilience, and Survival
Family
Summary
Analysis
Misha stands on a street corner, watching crowds of Jewish people walking past—he knows they’re Jewish because they have to wear white armbands with a blue star. The people are quietly carrying their ragged belongings with them. Uri explains that the people are going to the ghetto. In their wake, people fight over the houses and buildings the Jewish residents left behind them.
By the end of 1939, Jewish people in Warsaw were required to wear armbands identifying them as Jewish, and by the autumn of 1940, they were forced to live within an enclosed, guarded ghetto. Misha, himself technically an outsider, watches from afar.
Themes
Misha decides to walk with the Jews. He’s always wanted to be in a parade, so he marches with his head held high, goose-stepping. Nobody reacts. He tries to strike up conversation with various people and even offers them bites of the sausage he’s carrying, but nobody will talk to him. He finds Doctor Korczak marching and singing with his orphans. When Misha asks if the ghetto is wonderful, Doctor Korczak smiles and tells him, “We will make it wonderful.”
Though Misha’s decision to march alone is touching, he’s doing it out of a desire to have fun and not to be left out, not out of a conscious decision to identify with Warsaw’s Jews. This is yet another example of his kindness and innocence (despite his imitation of the Nazi marching style, the only kind he knows). Meanwhile, Doctor Korczak’s and the orphans’ determined singing is an example of resilience in the face of oppression.
Themes
Then, Misha spots Janina walking with her family. He makes Janina laugh by telling her about the Nazi living in her old house, whose foot he smashed with the bag of coal. He tells her that nobody in this crowd can see him, and Janina’s father says that it’s because everyone is afraid of him. Misha thinks this is silly, but Janina points out that it’s because Misha isn’t a Jew.
Despite his innocence, Misha isn’t oblivious to his surroundings; he’s aware that nobody in the crowd seems willing to speak to him. In this environment, anybody who’s not Jewish must be considered a potential threat to one’s safety—Nazi oppression erodes everyone’s trust in one another.
Themes
Misha offers his sausage to Janina’s family, and though her mother protests, Janina, her father, and her Uncle Shepsel finally finish it off. Misha and Janina keep chatting cheerfully. Janina’s mother isn’t pleased about “the thief” hanging around them, but Janina’s father lets it go. By now, they’re nearly at the ghetto, and people are starting to run.
Misha begins to befriend Janina’s family, the first step toward finding a family for himself. However, some people, like Janina’s mother, still see Misha simply as a thief—not as an individual. In the ghetto, people will be forced to fight for living space, hence the urgency to get there first.
Themes
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