Prisoner B-3087
By Sofia Orozco
Compare and Contrast
In the book Prisoner B-3087, the main character is Jakob (aka Yanek). In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, the main character is Anne.
Similarities between the two characters include:
- Both of the characters care about their family and want to help out in whatever way they can.
- Both of the characters want things to go back to normal. They want to go back to school and have all of their rights back.
- Both of the characters and their families try to stay unnoticeable from the Nazis with as little interaction with them if any.
- Both characters are proud to be a Jew and aren't going to let the Nazis keep them from practicing their religion. Yanek still had a bar mitzvah and Anne still celebrated Hanukka.
Differences between the two characters include:
- Yanek is more mature for his age and acts more like an adult rather than Anne, who still acts like a child and goofs around in the attic.
- Yanek understands the severity and the dangers of the things that the Nazis do. But Anne may not understand everything that's going on or why the Nazis are doing the terrible things.
- Yanek does things to meet his family's physical needs like sneaking out at night to get bread. However, Anne does things to meet her family's mental needs by singing a song which helps lighten the mood in the attic.
- Yanek is more independent since he has to go to the concentration camps alone with no one that he knows or that cares for him. Anne depends on her father and mother in the attic to keep her in control and to keep her from doing dangerous and bad things.
- Yanek survives the holocaust while Anne doesn't.
Pivotal Point
A pivotal action taken by Yanek was when he decided that "I would not give up. I would not turn myself in. No matter what the Nazis did to me, no matter what they took from me, I would survive." What caused him to take this action and not give into the Nazis was that his whole family was taken away and he was left all alone. He previously thought to himself "How would I survive? Why should I survive? Maybe I should just go and give myself to the Nazis," but then he realized that his parents wouldn't want him to do that, so he knew he couldn't give up. If Yanek didn't decide to "survive" he would have been killed for sure. But now, he at least has a chance to live.