48 pages 1 hour read

Carol Matas

Daniel's Story

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1993

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Part 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: Pictures of Buchenwald

Part 4, Chapter 13 Summary

Daniel is on a train again. He’s 18 and thinking of the symbolic pictures in his head and the material photos in his hand. They take him back to Buchenwald, where he reunites with Peter. The prisoners are violent. Joseph gets a job making furniture for SS men, and he gets his son a job as an assistant for a communist/resistance member Karl, who takes pictures of guards and their families.

Karl photographs an SS man, his wife, and two daughters. The SS man looks like an ideal dad. Later, the officer shoots a child prisoner in the leg for failing to sweep up some dirt. Daniel tells Karl about the incident, and Karl makes Daniel and his dad a part of the resistance.

Part 4, Chapter 14 Summary

Daniel and Joseph meet a kapo who introduces them to a man with tools. Using the tools, Daniel and his dad take apart a potential gas chamber. Karl tells them that prisoners purposely work slowly during the day and, at night, the resistance dismantles what work they did. Daniel listens to Karl’s radio, and, as it’s 1945, the Allies are on their way. If the Nazis try to kill them before then, the resistance has weapons and intends to fight back.