Making Bombs for Hitler

Union general William T. Sherman said that “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it,” and more pointedly, “War is hell.” War affects noncombatants, such as families and children—as profoundly as it impacts soldiers. As a person enslaved by the Nazis, Lida endures mental, physical, and emotional cruelty. The Nazis’ callous inhumanity towards Eastern Workers, Jewish people, and other cultures is rooted in the Nazis’ systemic racism and discrimination. Even amidst the horrors Lida experiences, however, there are glimmers of compassion and kindness that help the prisoners survive. Skrypuch calls attention to the atrocities of war so that they will be remembered and never repeated, and she shines a light on acts of goodness that counter evil and reaffirm faith in humanity.

The Nazis reject Lida’s Ukrainian heritage and label her Russian, which the Nazis believe is the lowest, most expendable class of workers. Although Lida knows “[a]ll humans are equal” (39), she is treated with contempt and disdain. The Nazis emphasize Lida’s inferiority—and that of other races—to reinforce their own superiority and justify the war. The workers are treated with prejudicial suspicion: Juli voices the stereotype that “All Russians are thieves,” and Inge believes Lida’s dirty laundry should not even mix with the German wash.

Lida recognizes that the Nazis judge the enslaved laborers as easily replaceable pieces of machinery. This attitude pressures Lida to prove herself useful; she fears that the Nazis will find her useless. Already viewed as disposable, she and the other workers must demonstrate practical value for their oppressors or be “thrown out” (92), the way Officer Schmidt callously poisons the OST workers. Similarly, the cruelty of the Soviets is also motivated by prejudiced judgment: They persecute Ukrainians before and after the war. German civilians are equally guilty of prejudice and discrimination. They pay the government for the use of enslaved laborers and look indifferently at the truckloads of emaciated, suffering workers. The citizens’ silence and tacit acceptance make them complicit in the persecution of the enslaved laborers.

The Nazis inhumanely strip the enslaved laborers of their identity and make it easy to view them as nonpersons. Lida and others suffer mental abuse from the Nazis. They are called “swine” and treated like work animals rather than people: stripped, herded into a chemical shower, shorn, deloused, and given dirty straw mattresses. The Nazis humiliate the enslaved laborers, take away their human dignity, destroy self-worth, and induce feelings of hopelessness.

Lida is also physically abused. She is beaten, whipped, and starved. She witnesses the Nazis perpetrate acts of violence. Luka is beaten, and Marika and the toothless woman are “gotten rid of.” Physical abuse reinforces the Nazi hierarchy: The Nazis are dominant and in control, while the enslaved laborers are weak and helpless.

The emotional abuse perpetrated by the Nazis is also devastating, striking at Lida and the other prisoners’ core values: family and culture. The Nazis shatter families, murdering those who are “useless” or a threat and stealing then abandoning children. They desecrate churches and synagogues, looting objects with cultural and spiritual significance. They steal and appropriate others’ possessions, wiping away signs of previous ownership in an act of entitlement.

All the cruelty Lida endures strips her of her innocence but not her humanity. Lida experiences acts of kindness and care that fuel her determination and hope. The girls in Barracks 7 display solidarity. Several German families treat their weekend camp workers with kindness. Lida sacrifices to help her friends and takes joy in the process. She and her fellow bomb-makers are empowered by their act of resistance.

Lida understands that acts of humanity, like love and compassion, are nonjudgmental and reflect equality. Lida sees this evidenced in the American soldier who helps her out of the ammunition factory. The soldier does not discriminate, devalue, or humiliate her; he treats her with kindness, as an equal. Lida embodies the virtue of humanity and its ethos of altruism. Lida retracts her critical judgment of Larissa and realizes that even “those young boys dressed up as soldiers” (171), the Hitler Youth, were pawns in the Nazi war machine. Similarly, Lida’s hatred of the German housewife vanishes when she recognizes their common humanity and loss.

Following the war, the refugees focus on restoring humanity to the war-torn world by reestablishing their families and reaffirming their cultures. In acts small and large—from the Czech woman who adopts the abandoned German child to the Ukrainian Catholic priest building a church from the rubble—Skrypuch shows that love, compassion, and kindness triumph over even the darkest of evils.