The irony of racism
As a child, Bornstein must face the irony of racism head on, because his community begins to mention his Judaism against him. Everyone has seen or heard about bullying in school, but this is bullying that has slowly become the norm in his community, so that when the Jews are rounded up, no one fights against the initiative. Ironically, his ethnicity and race are not optional.
The irony of the Nazis
The Nazi party is ironic because it is human evil made manifest, but with public support and approval, largely speaking. It turns out anti-semitism is not a strictly Nazi phenomenon, because when the Nazis spread their power past the boundaries of Germany (in an unimaginably ironic series of events), the whole of Europe sends their Jews away. Ironically, the Nazi party was only one half of the problem—the other problem was racism within European communities.
The irony of survival
It is technically ironic that Bornstein survived, and that his survival was documented historically by photographic evidence, but more ironic still is the book about his survival, because it tends to be more painful than the reader could imagine, and yet, he survived to tell the tale, and his writing is a struggle to see the meaning of these events. Survival is the theme of his life, even though many others in his specific community were given lives of privilege and wealth.
The irony of liberation
Like survival, liberation is ironic, because it signals to something that should never be—a young child kept as a prisoner to angry soldiers who treat him with contempt and disgust, taking his freedom away. To see a small child without their freedom to play is ironic. By the time he is actually liberated, he has exhausted his own mind, trying to hope for survival, trying to fight for hope at all. Then, one day, he is free. It's ironic how much he appreciates the freedom that should have belonged to him all along.
The irony of identity
All these ironic aspects of Bornstein's suffering are tells of a greater irony. Because he was Jewish, he was persecuted with his religious kin in an act so horrible that it has literally symbolized human evil ever since. Ironically, this instills him with a deeply religious identity, not because he goes to church or something, but because he has suffered greatly in life, forced into hell on earth. His identity is rooted in the horror and pain of his life, because he lived to tell the tale.
