"We were a wretched mass of fleeing people who had been kicked out of our homes. In just a few seconds, we had become immigrants, something she never wanted to accept. She had to face reality now."
In some ways, Hannah is more mature and well-grounded than her mother. She accepts the shift in fate when the Nazis come into power, but her mother refuses. Hannah's mom still believes that she is somehow an exception, but Hannah keeps urging her to look at all the people around them now. They're immigrants.
“The couple's physical decline became increasingly obvious with each passing hour. The old man, immobile in bed; Mrs. Adler, all alone, watching as the love of her life - her great support - slipped away slowly as this ship sailed to the island that was to be our salvation. This was the only answer they could find at an age when all you could hope for was the peace to be able to say good-bye.”
Hannah observes this old couple process the voyage. When the husband becomes sick and starts dying, he and his wife start to lose all hope. They're so old to try and start their lives over again, but at least they had each other. Now Mrs. Adler is likely to have to try and establish herself so late in life in a foreign country all alone. The indignity of their situation makes Hannah sick.
"We can't spend our lives constantly starting over. A generation goes by, they destroy us. We start over, and they destroy us again. Is that our fate?"
The passengers aboard the ship understand how tenuous their situations are. The Nazi regime threatens to perpetuate in future generations. Hannah and Leo, representing the young people in the group, recognize that they may very well establish themselves in Cuba only to be sent away again, like their parents were from Germany. They become cynical when confronted with the reality of oppression and their own powerlessness.
“I understood we were now left all on our own in a country heading into the unknown and prepared constantly for war. A country ruled by angry military men who had set themselves the task of reinventing history, of telling their own version of it, of changing its course as they saw fit.”
In her narrative, Hannah describes recognizing the increasingly precarious position of her Jewish family in Germany. They were wealthy, but their heritage was being challenged by the political climate. Hannah observes the anger and contempt and recklessness in the faces of the government. From her childish perspective, these attributes signal only danger. She could sense the change long before her parents because she didn't make excuses about the origins of such attributes.
