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The Flea

Chapter Summary

     In chapter 6, Tsura is in a train station when she hears a baby crying. She sees he is on the tracks and she goes down and saves him from getting run over by the train. The mother is thankful, and Tsura is happy about it until Tsura finds out that she is a Nazi. She is suddenly unhappy about saving the child and now wishes she that did not. After this, you find out why Tsura feels this way; when she was 11, Tsura was ordered to the clinic and was sterilized on the spot. Now, she can never have children.

     

     Ruth, her mother, and Elise all stand outside protesting Ruth’s mom sees Alex in the window, but by the time Ruth comes back they are gone and Ruth is mad she missed seeing Alexander. She and her mother decide that they will return the next day and continue their protest. They are going to take Elise with them even though her and Ruth’s friendship is falling apart. Ruth and her mom go to pick Elise up the next morning and the reader finds out that Ruth’s mom and Elise's mom used to be close friends until Elise's brother Victor died. As they are walking to the protest, Elise sees her brother with her and hears him speaking to her. The reader learns that her mom is anti-semitic and hates that Elise is protesting. Ruth and Elise go to their neighbors' basement when they hear loud sounds and sirens as bombs begin to fall on Berlin.

 

     Tsura takes Marko to her house with Wolf and Seraph. She decides that they are going to Marzahn now. Marko is worried about Alex and goes looking for him to find him gone. The explosions are still happening. Kizzy is still at Rosenstrasse while the bombing is going on, helping some of the little children who are scared.

Chapter Analysis

Tsura's memory of the clinic is a pivotal point in this chapter. As the author Cohen states “ Her hand on her stomach, she wanted to scream out. When Tsura was eleven years old,... Nazi doctors ordered her mother to bring Tsura to a clinic in the city. Tsura was sterilized on the spot” (181).  It’s a huge part of her now and she thinks about it constantly throughout the novel. She is reminded that she can never have children whenever she sees or hears about Nazis, or when she is near a hospital. It affects her views on the war. It is also hard for her to go into any hospital without feeling extremely uncomfortable.

Another significant event in this chapter is the realization that Elise misses her brother more than anything and still sees him next to her. She hates the Nazis for killing him and you see how that affects her viewpoints. Elise seeing Victor's ghost with her connects with the rest of the book because of an overall theme of loss. Many of the characters throughout the book have experienced loss throughout the book. Elise loses her brother Viktor who was killed by physicians, and Tsura, Marko, and Kizzy lose their guardian, Professor Duerr. Loss is a motif that connects these characters because it is something they have all experienced and have felt.

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