What Is The Hedging Of Between Shades Of Grey By Meg Wiviottka

What would you do if you were snatched from your home, forced to get on a train, and deposited at a place of unhappiness, of torture, of death? If was not a question for the millions of Jews and others that were taken to concentration camps and exposed to their worst nightmares during the separate occurrences of the Holocaust and Invasion of Lithuania. One of these such Jews is Zlatka from Paper Hearts by Meg Wiviott, who is sent to Auschwitz, a large concentration camp, and has to survive without her family. The only thing that keeps her going are the friends she finds in fellow concentration camp inmates. In a parallel situation, 15-year-old Lina Vilkas from Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys lives during Stalin’s Invasion of Lithuania.

One such example is how Zlatka creates a paper heart for her best friend Fania’s birthday. Such actions could be fatally punished at Auschwitz, so this was a very risky move. Of the supplies she has gathered to do so, Zlatka describes, “Simple things we didn’t have. Simple things once taken for granted. Stolen. Bartered. Traded. Simple things brought great risks” (Wiviott 258). Zlatka shows her resilience and defiance in the way that she takes risks to show love to her friend during a terrible time in their lives. Zlatka has stolen, bartered, and traded, which are usually classified as unlawful actions, but in this case, Zlatka is doing what she must to show herself and her friends that they are not the prisoners of the Germans, no matter what they might seem. Zlatka has shown defiance in this would-be simple act, rejecting all of the pain and horrible treatment she has endured at Auschwitz with the love she puts into her card. Though Zlatka’s form of defiance is more artistic and symbolized by good intentions, Lina Vilkas has her own way of demonstrating that her captors will not get to her. When Andrius, Lina’s friend, beat up by one of the NKVD Russian soldiers, Lina is so outraged that she proclaims, “‘How could they do this?’ I asked aloud. I looked around the train car. No one spoke. How could we stand up for ourselves if we cowered in

Zlatka has four worldly possessions, all of which are worn and old. In this passage, her resilience is shown by the urgency of her circumstances. Zlatka is exposed to the frigid temperatures of wintry Poland without protection; she wears only her thin prison uniform. This situation is less than optimal, but Zlatka obviously has developed a surplus of resilience if she is able to push past it. Another person may have withered under these circumstances, but the resilience Zlatka has developed keeps her going, and gives her hope for a better future. Similarly, Lina hopes for a better future, but, under her current circumstances, she is evolving to be unfeeling and to withstand anything. While Lina is working at a farm, a prisoner of the NKVD, “Autumn approached. The NKVD pushed us harder. If we so much as stumbled, they reduced our bread rations. Mother could close her thumb and middle finger around my forearm. I had no tears. The sensation of crying would fill me, but my eyes would only dry-heave and burn” (Septys 162). Lina has become resilient as Zlatka has, but, unlike Zlatka, Lina has taken her experiences and become impassive, a cold facade, who can withstand anything. This is still resilience, as demonstrated by Lina’s statement that she, “has no tears.” If one has no tears, he or she can go through anything and stay