Notes

Josef is 12 years old when the book starts and is very close to his bar mitzvah (the religious initiation ceremony of a Jewish boy who has reached the age of 13 and is regarded as ready to observe religious precepts and eligible to take part in public worship). The book starts on the Kristallnacht, also known as the night of broken glass. The Nazis broke into Josef and his family's house and took his father away to a concentration camp called Dachau; just because they were Jewish. His father was released only on condition that he leave Germany, forever. They had to go by ship with Josef's father who is very, very mentally unstable. The Ms.St Louis is the ship that Josef and his family, boarded with many other Jews, went on to a different country. However not all people on the ship have the same, 'believes'. Otto Schiendick is one of the many workers under the hull of Ms.St. Louis that supports Hitler and despises Jews. He once called Josef and his father, "Jewish rats!" Speaking of Josef's father, well, let Josef describe it for 'ya, "His father was gone. In many ways, he had never really come back from the concentration camp." His father was in shambles, and everyone knew when he made a suicide attempt by jumping into the ocean with the sharks.