Summary

Summary

"The men down there," she cried out desperately, "they're not wedding guests. They're Nazis. Nazis! Do you understand? They kill people. They killed--kill--will kill Jews. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Six millionof them! I know. Don't ask me how I know, I just do. We have to turn the wagons around. We have to run!"(Yolen, 64)

In Jane Yolen's novel, //The Devil's Arithmetic,// Hannah, an ordinary girl from the present day, //hates// "remembering" the past. So, she puts up a fight everytime a holiday comes around because she's "tired of remembering." However, this particular holiday, Passover Sedar, is a little different for her this year. When she goes to her grandfather's house, Hannah has a life changing experience. As tradition holds, the front door is to be opened for the prophet Elijah. But, when she opens the door, Hannah is transported back in time to Poland in 1942, the time right before the Holocaust.

In this alternate time zone, she is no longer referred to as Hannah; she is Chaya, a Jewish peasant girl. While in the past time, Hannah/Chaya experiences both the joys of the soon-to-be-gone shtetl life and the horrors of transport and the camps. She is captured by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp. While in the camp, Hannah/Chaya is befriended by another young girl, Rivka.

Rivka is able to teach Hannah/Chaya how to not let the horrible, dehumanizing processes of the concentration camps take away her identity, like they were intended to do. They make it through most of the novel, however, their luck runs out. Rivka is chosen for the gas chambers. But, Hannah, is a selfless act of self-sacrifice, goes in her place. But, when the door to the gas chamber is closed behind her, she is transported back to the present day and is stil standing at the door of her grandparent's apartment, still waiting for the prophet Elijah.

After many trials, she ends up offering her life to save another girl. In the next instant, she finds herself back at home staring blankly out the door she had opened for Elijah. She now understands the heartache and pain her grandfather had experienced.