Summary
The narrator recounts how electricity was returned to the ghetto. Everyone—Germans and Jews alike—wants the electricity to return. The Germans want the electricity to return because the outage has halted their factories and industry. The Jews want it so that Jacob’s radio will be returned to life. It is only Jacob himself who prefers life without electricity, as the outage means that he does not have to continue lying about the radio. Hardtloff, the leader of the Nazi forces in the ghetto, has the Jewish electricians who are working on the issue killed after five days of work. Finally, a special German crew arrives and identifies a spot where rats have chewed through a cable. They fix it, and power is restored.
The narrator describes all the questions that people are asking Jacob now that the electricity has returned. People are desperate for information on the war and the world in general. The narrator says that Jacob would have to be running a professional operation to truthfully answer even a third of the questions he is being asked. Even still, the narrator says ironically, this would only work “to the extent that newspapers and radio stations and contacts are to be trusted.”
At the freight yard, Jacob notices that the Whistle has a newspaper in his pocket. This is noteworthy for Jacob because he knows that what is written on the newspaper would likely give him more true material for his “radio" to announce. Jacob watches the Whistle take the newspaper into the outhouse to use it as toilet paper. After the Whistle leaves the outhouse, Jacob sneaks in to see if any of the newspaper was left behind. Sure enough, much of the paper has been left in the outhouse. Jacob hides the newspaper under his shirt and is about to leave the outhouse when he sees a soldier walking towards him. It is too late for Jacob to sneak out of the outhouse. When the soldier opens the door, Jacob is holding the newspaper over his face, disguising his identity and making him seem like a fellow Nazi officer. The soldier apologizes and closes the door to wait outside.
Kowalski, who had seen Jacob go to the outhouse, notices Jacob’s situation. He creates a diversion by knocking down a stack of crates, allowing Jacob to escape. The soldier who was waiting outside the outhouse beats Kowalski for his clumsiness. Afterwards, the soldier rushes to the newly vacated outhouse. Kowalski berates Jacob while they repair the crates. The soldier emerges from the outhouse, dropping two cigarettes as he walks away. The narrator speculates that these may have been dropped as a gift or apology to Kowalski.
The Whistle signals lunch. As the workers line up, Jacob tells Kowalski that the Germans are suffering huge losses. Kowalski smiles despite his pain.
Back home, Jacob tries to get useful information out of the squares of newspaper left behind by the Whistle. But what he can piece together is entirely irrelevant to what should be coming from his radio. In an aside, the narrator discusses the Völkischer Kurier, an old German newspaper that devoted its time to discussing how long the Germans should have to pay for their actions in World War I. The classified section, he says, was good, but you had to check the name of the person making the listing before following up on it (because some people might be unwilling to sell to Jews).
Finding nothing useful in the newspaper, Jacob decides to get out of his lies by saying that his radio has died. He destroys the scraps of newspaper just before Lina enters the room. Lina asks Jacob if he has heard that the Russians are close. After Jacob feigns ignorance, Lina asks him if life will be better once the Russians have arrived. Jacob says yes to this, then says he hasn’t forgotten his promise to let Lina work in his shop after they are freed.
Someone knocks on Jacob’s door. Jacob has Lina hide before opening the door to reveal Kowalski. With Lina still hidden, Kowalski asks Jacob if there is any more news from his radio. Jacob refuses to answer, causing Kowalski to ask Jacob why he always gets upset when Kowalski asks him about the radio. At this, Jacob jumps up in anger, and Lina emerges from behind the couch. Lina has heard and understood everything. Jacob sends her upstairs. At first, Jacob is upset with Kowalski for accidentally informing Lina about the “radio,” but he cools down after Kowalski reminds him of the events of that morning. The two smoke and relax. Kowalski asks Jacob about the advance of the Russians, and Jacob tells him that the radio has died. Kowalski is horrified.
It is the next day. Jacob is working a yontev, or holiday, job in which he is stacking bags along the walls of a freight car. He is working with Leonard Schmidt, a lawyer who had been “well on the way to becoming a German nationalist” when a rival lawyer found that he had a Jewish ancestor. While working, the two talk about Jacob’s experience as a witness in the office of the district attorney. Schmidt tells Jacob that Jacob committed hearsay by lying about seeing Kowalski pay back a sum of money he owed. Evenually, Schmidt asks Jacob about Churchill and the war—Jacob says his radio is busted.
Suddenly, they hear the Whistle yelling and see him advancing on Herschel Schtamm, who was about to open a closed boxcar. The Whistle tells everyone that that car must stay closed. Jacob and Schmidt continue to talk until Herschel approaches them and says that he heard voices coming from the car. This distresses Jacob and surprises Schmidt. They see Herschel standing next to the freight car. He is listening to the voices from within and speaking back to the car. Roman (Herschel’s brother) and two other men grab Herschel to prevent him from being shot by the sentries on duty. The narrator imagines the conversation that occurred between Herschel and the people in the car. In the narrator’s mind, Herschel tells the people in the car to hang on because the Russians have already passed Bezanika.
On Herschel’s walk back from the freight car, he is shot through the window of the brick military building. Roman goes over to his body and takes Herschel’s fur cap off, revealing his earlocks, which have stayed hidden for as long as the ghetto has been in place. Everyone is told to go back to work. Jacob feels guilty for giving Herschel the hope that caused his death. When Jacob sees Roman later that day, Roman looks at him as if he had killed Herschel himself.
Lina has entered Jacob’s house using the key he hid for her. She intends to search for his radio, but she does not know what one would look like. She finds an object that she believes to be a radio. She asks it her name and then the solution to thirty multiplied by two million. When Jacob arrives home, Lina cleans everything up but leaves the “radio,” which is actually a kerosene lamp, on the table. Jacob asks why the lamp is out and explains how it works. Lina admits she was looking for the radio, causing Jacob to wish that he had said the lamp was the radio. He considers whether to tell her that he destroyed his radio, but he hesitates because he does not want to destroy the ghetto’s hope. Lina says she will continue to look for the radio.
Analysis
Jacob is now overwhelmed by the Jews' desire for information. People are asking Jacob so many questions that the narrator says he would need a professional operation to answer a third of the queries. In a case of verbal irony, the narrator says even this would only work “to the extent that newspapers and radio stations and contacts are to be trusted.” This is an example of verbal irony because the narrator's words differ from his meaning. In truth, it is Jacob who cannot be trusted. The effect of this irony is to enhance the comic tone of the novel.
Next, the scene in which Kowalski assists Jacob by creating a diversion is an important moment in Kowalski's characterization and in defining the two characters' friendship. For the first time, we see Kowalski commit a truly selfless and loyal act, which results in him getting beaten. Kowalski's decision to help Jacob makes him a more sympathetic character and places him firmly on Jacob's side of any conflict. This scene also helps us see the depth of Jacob and Kowalski's friendship. We know the two of them are old friends, but this moment shows that Kowalski is willing to do anything for Jacob, and presumably Jacob would do the same for Kowalski.
Kowalski's diversion tactic also relates to the theme of family. Neither Jacob nor Kowalski, nor many of the other residents of the ghetto, have any real family remaining. Accordingly, they are forced to forge their own familial connections. Kowalski's sacrifice seems to be doing exactly that, as it shows that he and Jacob have a bond as strong as family. The result is that Jacob is left "emotional for the first time in forty years." Finally, the scene prepares the reader to be emotionally affected by Kowalski's eventual death, which seems especially tragic given his sacrifice for Jacob here.
In Chapter 23, Herschel is murdered for interacting with people who were loaded in a boxcar. This tragic scene shows the dangers of hope and deception. As Jacob himself understands, Herschel was inspired to talk to the Jews in the boxcar because Jacob's lies about the Russians gave him hope. This hope had only negative effects. Similarly, Jacob is faced with the full significance of his lies here. He sees for the first time just how dangerous his words can be.
The final chapter in this section presents a perfect example of dramatic irony. Lina believes that she has found Jacob's radio, but the reader knows that the radio does not exist. This tension between the audience's understanding of a situation (even though the audience is temporarily kept in the dark as to the object's real identity) and Lina's perception creates a comic scene, though neither Lina nor Jacob sees it that way. This is one of the major triumphs of Becker's writing: his ability to use a narrator looking back on a grim situation to create distance between the "then" and the "now." This temporal distance facilitates comedy in a way that would be impossible if the story was presented entirely in the present tense.
