61 pages • 2 hours read
Heather MorrisA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content Warning: This study guide contains depictions of genocide, rape, sexual assault, suicide, and drug addiction.
The symbolism of Hut 29 evolves throughout the novel, just like the women it houses. In the beginning, the hut represents a place of oppression and rape. This is because the men force their way in and take advantage of the women, desecrating the only personal space the women have in the camp. Despite the men’s visits, however, the women’s friendships gradually transform the hut from a place of powerlessness to one of peace, comfort, and relative safety. The women form deep bonds over time and comfort each other in moments of need and suffering, even making fun of the men who rape them so that the men’s visits become less painful and something that must simply be endured. The women also decorate the hut to make it feel more like a home. When Josie Kotecka brings Cilka Klein two spring flowers, Cilka places them in a chipped mug in the hut. Likewise, Olga teaches several women to embroider, and they take the threads from the end of their sheets to make “beautiful doilies which are strung about the hut” (91).
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
View Collection
Memorial Day Reads
View Collection
Military Reads
View Collection
Mortality & Death
View Collection
Sexual Harassment & Violence
View Collection
The Best of "Best Book" Lists
View Collection
World War II
View Collection