Prisoner B-3087: Chapters 7–12

by Alan Gratz
Based on a true story, this novel tells the story of a boy who survived imprisonment in multiple Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–6, Chapters 7–12, Chapters 13–17, Chapters 18–23, Chapters 24–30
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. piteous
    deserving or inciting a feeling of sympathy and sorrow
    Some of them were too weak to walk and collapsed on the pavement. They cried out piteously.
  2. heave
    rise and move up and down, as in waves
    I watched my mother’s eyes grow wide again, watched her chest heave as she breathed faster and faster.
  3. liquidate
    get rid of by killing
    “Jews of Kraków! Unless everyone comes to Zgody Square for selection, this ghetto will be liquidated! If you do not come out of your houses by six p.m., every one of you will be shot on sight when we find you!"
  4. prophet
    someone who speaks by divine inspiration
    “Yanek speaks with the wisdom of the prophet Isaiah,” he said softly, then quoted, “‘Come, my people...and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past.’”
  5. quota
    a prescribed number
    Once their quota was filled, they went away again.
  6. deportation
    the act of expelling a person from their native land
    After the deportation, the wailing of old women could be heard from nearly every window and door in the ghetto.
  7. reluctantly
    with a certain degree of unwillingness
    Those who could work were not taken away, and so, reluctantly, my father and I showed up for work details every morning.
  8. fateful
    having momentous consequences; of decisive importance
    One afternoon after work, I made a fateful decision. I went by a friend’s house instead of going directly back to my family’s rooftop hideaway.
  9. wrench
    twist or pull violently or suddenly
    I felt like my heart was being wrenched out of my chest.
  10. determination
    firmness of purpose
    In the place of my pain, I felt the stirring of determination.
  11. voluntary
    of your own free will or design
    Aunt Gizela and little Zytka went for a voluntary selection in Zgody Square, in hopes that the Nazis meant what they said about resettlement.
  12. sole
    single and isolated from others
    By the summer of 1942, only I remained—the sole member of my family left in the Kraków ghetto.
  13. grit
    small coarse bits of stone, sand, or gravel
    I got to my feet and brushed the grit from my bleeding hands as we were herded inside.
  14. barrack
    a building or group of buildings to house military personnel
    That night we were marched to our barracks, where we were each given a small piece of bread and a bowl of watery soup.
  15. meager
    deficient in amount or quality or extent
    I was just finishing my meager meal when Uncle Moshe found me.
  16. commandant
    an officer in charge of a military unit
    “Good. Good! Any job you can do outside the camp will help you avoid Amon Goeth.”
    “Who?”
    “The commandant of the camp.”
  17. tally
    the act of counting; reciting numbers in ascending order
    We were lined up in row upon row while the Nazis checked the numbers on our uniforms against the tally on their clipboards.
  18. doff
    remove
    The man beside me hadn’t been the only man to die at roll call—another was shot, supposedly for not smacking his cap against his leg with enough snap when doffing it for one of the soldiers.
  19. furrier
    someone who makes or sells garments made of animal pelts
    Uncle Moshe did the same, working in a furrier’s shop outside the camp.
  20. taint
    the state of being contaminated
    “The entire ghetto must be cleaned,” one of the Nazis told us. “There must be no taint of Jews left.”
  21. disposal
    the act or means of getting rid of something
    We were told how to search each flat for anything of value, and how to sort what was left into piles on the floor for removal and disposal—clothes should be sorted in one way, household items in another.
  22. putrid
    of or relating to the process of decay
    There was a new smell too, something putrid, like nothing I had ever smelled before.
  23. ajar
    slightly open
    The door was ajar, and I pushed it open the rest of the way to look inside.
  24. shrivel
    wither, as with a loss of moisture
    The body was black and shriveled, all rags and bones and—I stumbled back into the hall and retched.
  25. sift
    distinguish and separate out
    I went into the pigeon coop, fighting back all the memories of my mother and father. I sifted through what was left.
  26. tattered
    worn to shreds; or wearing torn or ragged clothing
    Someone else had lived here after I had been taken—there was a tattered scarf I didn’t remember, and a red blanket that hadn’t been mine.
  27. hastily
    in a hurried manner
    I glanced outside the coop to make sure no one else had made it to the roof yet, and I hastily ripped the seams of my father’s coat apart.
  28. munition
    weapons considered collectively
    “I know a man who works in the munitions plant,” Uncle Moshe whispered.
  29. captor
    a person who entraps and holds someone else
    They were zombies, worked and starved into a living death by our captors.
  30. ragged
    worn out from stress or strain
    I could hear him down there, breathing his ragged breath. I could hear him dying of starvation, and I had food.
  31. pact
    a written agreement between two states or sovereigns
    There were rumors the Russians and the Germans had abandoned their pact and were at war with each other now, making Hitler fight the English and French and Americans in the west, and the Russians in the east.
  32. sustain
    provide with nourishment
    The work was brutal, and the food too meager to sustain me.
  33. desperate
    showing extreme urgency or intensity because of great need
    I was desperate to get up, but I couldn’t make my legs obey me, couldn’t pull up my own weight with my stick-and-straw arms.
  34. pallet
    a portable platform for storing or moving goods
    The ground was hard, but it didn’t matter. So were the wooden pallets we called beds.
  35. refuge
    a shelter from danger or hardship
    The tight little crawl space under the floorboards suddenly felt like a coffin, like I was already dead and buried. My refuge from the nightmare of Plaszów was now a trap.
Created on Wed Jan 30 20:58:04 EST 2019 (updated Thu Feb 07 11:29:09 EST 2019)

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