Time Period: 1930s-1950s

Locations: Germany, Nazi ghettos, concentration camps, England

Key Plot Points and Takeaways:

• Pre-war life: Middle-class Jewish family in Germany who live in a four story house with Eva's sister Margot and parents

  • Papa is a doctor and mama comes from a wealthy banking family

• They are forced to move to a smaller apartment and sent into hiding (Margot is sent away)

• They are forced into deportation, being sent to camps with her parents

• In the camp they experience starvation, the loss of parents, mourning a friendship with an individual named Bella who died in the camp, and witnessing constant death

• After being liberated Eva meets a British soldier named Gerry, but soon the relationship falls apart

• She arrives in England and hopes to marry Gerry where she discovers he has a wife and child-- she then attempts to commit suicide

Themes of trauma and memory alongside inability to communicate suffering

Quotes:

• "My name is Eva Stern. I am twenty-one years old. Just when I think I am going to fall, I flap my wings" (Phillips 28)

• "But last night, in the pub, I finally abandoned words" (Phillips 170)

Time Period: 1930s-1950s

Locations: Germany, Palestine, Cyprus

Key Plot Points and Takeaways:

• Brother to Eva's father (Ernst)

• Is a doctor like Eva's father

• Works into in Cyprus DP camps after WWII

• Meets young Holocaust survivor Moshe and tries to give him hope 

• Deals with guilt over abandoning his family whilst helping other survivors

Themes of Zionism and guilt alongside displacement

Quotes:

• "To remember too much is, indeed, a form of madness" (Phillips 190)

Renaissance Period

Locations: Venice, Cyprus

Key Plot Points and Takeaways:

• Arrives in Venice as a recently hired military general

• Falls in love with Desdemona, the senator's daughter

• The secrecy behind their marriage causes a scandal, causing Desdemona's father to disown her

• Appointed as a Governor of Cyprus

• Constantly reminded that he is an outsider by being called racial terms

• Struggles with his belonging

Themes of racial otherness and interracial love

Quotes:

• "My wife smiles, and I reach over and clutch this faithful jewel to my bosom." (Phillips 155)

• "You tuck your black skin away beneath their epauletted uniform, appropriate their words (Rude am I in speech" (Phillips 162)

March-July 1480

Locations: Portbuffole and Venice

Key Plot Points and Takeaways:

• The Jewish people live as moneylenders under the "Contract of Moses"

• Young beggar named Sebastian New goes missing during Passover

• Some people (Servadio, Moses, and Giacobbe) are accused of ritual murder

• They are tortured until they confess

• Have a trial in Venice before the Grand Council

• Are convicted and burned alive in St. Mark's square

Themes of antisemitism and scapegoating

1990s

Locations: Ethiopia and Israel

Key Plot Points and Takeaways:

• Ethiopian Jew living in rural village

• He is airlifted to Israel during Operation Moses/Solomon

• Experiences extreme culture shock

• Trained as a nurse but can not find work due to racism

• Lives in a cramped apartment with his parents and sister

• Parents can't adapt due to his mother being tattooed

• Meets an elderly doctor (Uncle Stephan)

• Questions if this location is truly "home"

Themes of displacement and racism

Quotes:

• "During Passover, we kill a lamb and sprinkle its fresh red blood around the synagogue. But not here. You do not allow this. You say you rescued me. Gently plucked me from one century, helped me to cross two more, and then placed me in this time. Here. Now. But why? What are you trying to prove" (Phillips 187)

They are all structured in a fragmented form with non-chronological chapters

There are thematic mentions of blood, water crossings, displacement, otherness, and racial violence in each story

Venice is mentioned in three of the narratives

There are several failed homecomings

There are a variety of camps mentioned (concentration, DP, absorption centers)