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Finding light in the darkness, Yanek gains a friend named Fred on pages…

- - - - But I wasn't going to make it to nightfall, not even with the gray clouds overhead. Just when I thought I couldn't take another step, my load lightened-- another prisoner stepped in to take the boy's other arm! He was an old man with sunken, bloodshot eyes, deep cracks in his face, and a grizzled beard. He looked like I might be carrying him next. "Can't walk so well myself," he rasped, "but i'll help you the rest of today." pg (179)
- - - - As I ran a wet finger across my teeth, a memory suddenly came to me, unbidden. I remembered the first day my mother had brought me home a toothbrush. I must have been no more than three of four. The toothbrush was shiny and plastic and green. That moment seemed like a million years ago. Had I ever really owned something so amazing as a toothbrush? Had I ever really lived in a world with such wondrous things in it? Even the simplest of possessions seemed like treasures now.
- - - - "I stepped on board the train and didn't look back. For nine years I had done everything I could to survive. Now it was time to live."
    - - And then they brought the food/ Big platters of roast beef. Mashed potatoes. Gravy. And baskets of rolls -- more bread than any of had seen in years.
        
        There were napkins too.
        
        We were to eat the same food the soldiers ate. There were plates at the table, and silverware.
        
        That Night in the dinning hall, we sat in chairs. At a table. I hadn't seen a chair in six years, nor a table.
        
        "Beside my bed there was a little table, and on the table the Americans had given me more gifts:a washcloth, a cup, and a toothbrush, I picked up the toothbrush reverently and cried as I held it in my hands.
        
        "A bed all to myself! Then -- wonder upon wonders -- the soldier gave me a blanket, a pillow, and sheets for the bed. Sheets! My fellow prisoners and I looked around at one another like we were on some alien planet.
  - - - "She burst into tears when I told her who I was, and she hugged me so hard I couldn't breath
      - '"Oh, Yanek! Yanek, it is so good to see you!" she said at last. "The last time I saw you, you were just a boy!
  - - - '"No, no, Yanek! You need to go to America!" Youzek told me. "That's where the opportunities are. That's where you can build a new life for yourself."