The Polish scene
We are shown a community in Poland. Bornstein lives in an upper-middle class area, and the scenery of Poland is like before the fall of man. Bornstein recalls these memories of his original homelands with much tenderness, remembering the days before he had ever learned of a Nazi. This natural beauty sets the scene for an inciting issue—there is racism in the community, which is not congruous to the beauty of nature.
Death camps
What is the exact opposite of European fields full of flowers and life? It is the death camps of the Nazi Holocaust, scenes which were hellish and unfathomably scary for all victims who were made to live there as prisoners. They are especially terrifying to the impressionable psychology of Bornstein in his youth. He wasn't even eight years old, but he was made to endure an experience that certainly ranks among the most terrifying things that ever happened on the planet.
Post-War Europe
There is a second picture of Europe offered. After Bornstein's miraculous survival and escape from the clutches of Hitler's forces, he sees that Europe does not feel differently about Jews than they did before. We see the same communities, but where Jews used to live, new tenants have moved in and staked a claim. They don't get their houses back. They are wanderers. We see the Jews regarded as animals by their own communities even after the Holocaust. This is a picture of Europe that is painful but important to remember.
Escape and new life
Twice, we see a new instance of imagery which is pointing the reader to feelings of escape from horror and trauma, and the hope of new life in a new location. First, there are the Japanese arrangements immediately following their liberation, but more specifically, we see imagery associated to America, to the difficult process of immigration. This is a difficult portrait, because Bornstein must reconcile his past, leaving behind a whole community of dead people he will have to mourn over the course of his life.
