Holocaust and immigration. Writing is his desperate attempt at threading together his

fragmented self-narrative. In response to a serious traumatic damage to his carefully built

self-narrative and personal history, Herman holds onto his writing to retain and restore

some measure of self-identity. Unable to share this integral process of reflection with the

simple-minded Yadwiga, Herman emerges from his hiding place and moves toward

Masha, another restless survivor who in many ways is a mirror image of himself. Like

those who need a mirror to examine their reflected images, Herman and Masha need the

audience who would echo back their self-narrative and validate their existence as

survivors.

 The relationship between Herman and Masha is based upon their mutual need to

claim their life as survivors, but seemingly conflicting activities of remembering and

forgetting, in an odd fashion, oscillate in this process of reclaiming their life. Although

obvious sexual attraction plays a significant role in bringing them together, actually even

their ritualistic lovemaking, which is always accompanied by Masha's catastrophic

recounts of her Holocaust experiences, is a disguised means of confirming the

unbelievable fact that they withstood the tests of life and death and outlived the endless

persecution. Their ritualistic love making clearly shows that there is something sanctified

about their union.


 Masha compared herself to Scheherazade. The kissing, the fondling, the passionate
 love-making was always accompanied by stories from the ghettos, the camps. her
 wandering through the ruins of Poland. .Their love-making was not merely a
 matter of a man and woman having intercourse, but a ritual that often lasted till
 daybreak. It reminded Herman of the ancients, who would relate the miracle of the
 exodus from Egypt until the morning star rose. (44-45)