The Cage

The beginning of the second chapter carries the narrator to another spring, this one in 1939, in Lodz, Poland. Sender is thirteen years old. She feels the excitement and anticipation that come with the spring season, the highlight of which is Passover, or Pesach. For Pesach, she explains, her family and the others around her clean their homes, apply fresh paint to their walls, and make clothing to begin afresh. Sender again focuses on her busy mother, who “gives […] the best she can in a home filled with love” (9). Mama’s devotion to her family includes working at the sewing machine to make clothing for each of her seven children and for Harry, the grandson of her landlord, Mrs. Gruber. The Grubers are close family friends, and Mrs. Gruber’s grandson, Harry, who is also thirteen, “is an only child and spends most of his time” with the narrator’s family (9). The Grubers speak Yiddish, and “it is hard to believe they are not Jewish” (9).

As Mama sews, Sender works on cleaning the house. After Mrs. Gruber checks in to ensure that Mama has ordered her matzos and remembered to sew Harry a new shirt, too, she walks outside to stand under a majestic oak tree, which is “covered with big, green leaves, spreading out its branches like a beautiful umbrella even now, when it is first beginning to sprout” (8).