The doctor aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff. When he learns Joana is a nurse, he asks for her help and secures her a boarding pass. Halinka The book was honored as a finalist of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award in 2017 [6] and was listed as a 2017 Best Children's Book of the Year with Outstanding Merit from the Children's Book Committee of Bank Street College of Education. [7] Characters [ edit ] Pin Add Salt To The Sea by Ruta Sepetys to your TBR list. Pin this book review, character analysis, and summary for later. Salt To The Sea Summary Insults such as "stupid," "fool," "filthy Pole," and " untermensch," a term the Nazis used to describe "inferior people."

Salt to the Sea - Penguin Random House

She should know Poland. Looking at the child, I suddenly became hungry for my country, for its fat bees carrying nectar from apple flowers and for the birds singing in clusters of hazel. This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. ( March 2022) War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost." Clara Christensen, p. 413On board the Gustloff, Joana works in the infirmary while Florian hides from the Nazi soldiers who are looking for him. Emilia gives birth to her baby, Halinka. Suddenly, Russian torpedoes hit the Gustloff. Within an hour the ship sinks and thousands die. Joana and Florian escape on a lifeboat with Halinka and Klaus, a young boy who traveled with their group. Emilia ends up on a raft with Alfred. Emilia reveals she is Polish and Alfred tries to kill her. The reader learns that despite Alfred's racist ideology, his love interest, Hannelore, is Jewish. In the end both Alfred and Emilia die. Find sources: "Salt to the Sea"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( March 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) a b Nance, Kevin (4 February 2016). "Ruta Sepetys on 'Salt to the Sea,' sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff". Chicago Tribune. These four unlikely characters meet in 1945 as three of them flee Soviet advances as the Nazi regime collapses. Readers will learn a great deal about World War II, particularly about conditions on the Eastern Front as the Russian Army invaded. Historical details about what happened to the Poles and Prussians and Lithuanians and ethnic Germans throughout the area are explained. Thanks to Florian, readers will find out about the countless treasures the Nazis stole from other countries, such as Catherine the Great's Amber Room, once considered the Eighth Wonder of the World. Through Alfred's perspective, readers will learn about what Hitler Youth and Nazi true believers did to ensure loyalty to the Führer. And the entire book is a history lesson in the sinking of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff.

Salt to the Sea | Ruta Sepetys Salt to the Sea | Ruta Sepetys

I had received the sign six years ago. It was Saint John’s Night, the longest day of the year. Mama loved Saint John’s celebration—a night of bonfires, singing, and dancing. The tradition called for girls to make wreaths of flowers and candles. At dark, they would light the candles and send their wreaths floating down the river. Legend said that the boy who retrieved your wreath downstream was the boy you would marry. The year Mama died, the older girls let me make a wreath of flowers and candles with them. I chose all of Mama’s favorites—hibiscus, roses, poppies, and dried herbs. Father constantly worried about me. He cried when he told me that he was sending me away to the Kleists’ farm in East Prussia for safety. I wanted to cry too. I wanted to scream and refuse. But it hurt so much to see him sad, losing all that he loved. So I assured him that he was right, it was for the best, and that I was not upset. I told him that we would see each other in a couple of year, when the war of winter turned to spring. Joana is a survivor. She survived while other members of her family and other passengers on the Wilhelm Gustloff died. All she wants to do is help those around her. Yet as the Gustloff sinks she helpless in the face of such a terrible tragedy. All she can do is watch thousands of people die around her.Are you okay?” I asked, barely recognizing my own voice. His face twisted at the sound of my words. People die from bullet wounds, starvation, and other injuries. Most of the people on the ship drown as it sinks. A young woman is almost raped. A woman falls into a frozen river and dies. Characters shoot and kill a couple of different men threatening them or someone they're defending. Florian steals the key and map to the Amber Room to take revenge on Dr. Lange. He steals the amber swan to take revenge on Hitler. However, by the end of Salt to the Sea, Florian realizes that he is caught in a vicious cycle of revenge. He realizes that all of his lying and killing was in vain. In part, this is because he believes that both he and the amber swan will end up at the bottom of the Baltic Sea as the Wilhlem Gustloff ship sinks. Moreover, he realizes that responding to lies with more lies isn't good for anyone and only creates more pain. In the end, Florian reflects that revenge is a useless cycle, since it tries to answer pain by inflicting more pain. Through Florian’s character, Sepetys develops the theme of revenge in the novel.

Salt to the Sea Characters | GradeSaver Salt to the Sea Characters | GradeSaver

One of four narrators, Florian is a talented young restoration artist from East Prussia. He worked for the Nazis restoring European paintings. When he realizes the Nazis stole the art, he decides to take revenge by stealing the amber swan, Hitler's favorite piece from the Amber Room. Florian acts deceitfully and believes he is on a mission with this stolen piece of art. Later in the book, he shows himself as a kindhearted person and realizes that his act of revenge was pointless. Emilia Stozek

Emilia died, just like more than nine thousand real people who were on board the Gustloff. But Sepetys ends Salt to the Sea insisting that while war breaks families into irretrievable pieces, "those who are gone are not necessarily lost." Emilia is physically gone, but her memory lives on. Florian, Joana, Klaus, and Halinka continue to be inspired by Emilia’s bravery. And Clara and Niels, the couple who find Emilia’s body on the Danish shore, bury Emilia by a small creek near a beautiful bed of roses. Emilia loves nature and surely would have been happy in this setting. Clara insists that she thinks of Emilia often, and that Emilia is safe and loved. Please join our community as we wander around the tipsy world reading books and watching movies to inspire travel. I am so glad that you loved Salt to the Sea. I just love Ruta Sepetys, and I agree, it's a wonderful novel. Have you read other Sepetys' books? Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide. Get started Close

You Shouldn’t Skip WW2 Novel, Salt to the Sea Why You Shouldn’t Skip WW2 Novel, Salt to the Sea

Once the youth arrive at the port, they face even more danger and hardships than on their trek there. Everyone wants to escape the Soviet soldiers, but there is not enough room. In this time of endless YA romances, it is very refreshing to see a novel where the romance doesn’t dominate. This is not to say it’s not a beautifully written and important part of the novel but the romance doesn’t define either of the characters or detract attention away from the central tragedy. This playful quote from Joana highlights Sepetys's masterful characterization of the group of refugees in the novel. Each character has a strong identity that Sepetys develops through anecdotes about their hometowns, memories of their lives before the war, and information about their family dynamics. While Salt to the Sea is a work of historical fiction that tells the story of real historical events, it is also fundamentally a character-driven novel. By the time the group of refugees finally arrives to the port of Gotenhafen, their lives are increasingly intertwined. Joana and Florian fall in love. Emilia views Florian as proof that there are good men in the world. At Gotenhafen, they all depend on Alfred’s help to get boarding passes.

What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?” Florian, p. 102 Salt to the Sea takes place in January 1945, during the final days of WWII. The Allied forces are gaining ground both to the west and the east, and so German civilians are evacuating, fleeing violence and running towards the Baltic Sea where the German navy will transport them to safety. Throughout the journey to the evacuation ships, the refugees get to know one another. It is revealed that Emilia is eight months pregnant after an assault by Russian soldiers; Florian, the restoration artist, is on the run for stealing a piece of art from the Amber Room; and Joana feels responsible for some of the deaths of her family. By the time the group reaches the evacuation ships, their relationships are solidified. It is clear that Joana and Florian have fallen in love, and Emilia sees Florian as a symbol of good men.