Summary
Emilia goes outside the barn to get a stick for Florian to bite down on. There she encounters an enormous stork’s nest. Emilia reveals that she also has a secret. She would like to confide in Joana and accept her help but she worries that Joana will be disgusted.
Meanwhile, Stalin’s Army is closing in on Germany and there are rumors that the German front has fallen. Weary refugees from near and far are arriving to the port of Gotenhafen. There, Alfred’s crew will register hundreds of thousands of people for a massive naval evacuation. Alfred is told to take a stack of life jackets to an enormous, gray ship: The Wilhelm Gustloff. A few months earlier, the U.S. army bombed the harbor and sunk a ship. Alfred thinks the American forces could bomb them again, resulting in half a million deaths. As he imagines telling Hannelore of his important mission, he is frightened by a thundering boom near the water.
As Joana removes the shrapnel from Florian’s wound, she tries to catch a glimpse of his identity card. He stops her angrily and accuses her of being a thief. He asks Joana to reveal something about herself and she whispers that she is a murderer. When Florian wakes up before dawn to leave the barn, he rummages through Joana’s belongings and takes something “unexpected” from her. He questions his actions but tells himself he’s doing it for his own protection.
Florian, we learn, is in danger. He must make it to the port and sail west in order to complete his mission. As he leaves the barn he recalls how he used to work as a restoration artist at the Königsberg museum. He held great respect for the museum’s director, Dr. Lange. Lange sent him to school and Florian wrote him many letters. Florian worked tirelessly restoring paintings, in an effort to fulfill Hitler’s dream of creating a national art museum. They reported to Erich Koch, the Nazi’s regional leader and a “monster.” One day, Florian found all of his letters to Lange thrown into a drawer, unopened.
Emilia trails behind Florian. He tells her she should stay with the group, but eventually, he feels sympathy for her. He gives her a gun and tells her how to use it. When Emilia stops to relieve herself, a soldier emerges from the forest and points his gun at Florian. She shoots him. The soldier continues to point his gun at Florian, who shoots him again and kills him. He is very worried about what happened, because the soldier was German.
At the barn the refugees awaken and realize the German deserter and the runaway Pole are gone. Eva and the shoe poet believe it’s for the best. The shoe poet tells them there is a grand Prussian manor house nearby and they set off in the hopes of spending the night there. As they walk, Ingrid, the blind girl, tells Joana that Florian has gray eyes and is a thief. Just when the group is beginning to lose hope, they finally find the manor house.
Analysis
Salt to the Sea continues to weave between different narrators' points of view, as each faces greater danger. The war makes it difficult for them to trust each other. Florian thinks Joanna is pretty and wants to open up to her. However, he cannot risk getting distracted from his mission. Emilia also wants to trust Joana with her secret. But she worries that the nurse will be disgusted.
Even so, some characters help one another even when it means putting their own lives in danger. Joana cures Florian’s wound even though the group is afraid that he is an army deserter. Florian doesn’t abandon Emilia even though she will slow him down. And Emilia shoots the soldier who was pointing his gun at Florian.
In many ways, Alfred serves as an allegory for Germany. As he worries about proving himself, he recites a song about the racial, social, and political enemies established by the Reich. The more he feels weakness, the more he clings to an ideology of hatred and superiority. He boasts of heroic acts, but in reality, his superiors scold him and assign him lowly tasks.
Similarly, even as it becomes increasingly clear that Germany is losing the war, Hitler is in denial and tries to tighten his grip. For example, Erich Koch, the region’s Nazi leader, refuses to let civilians evacuate, because this would mean accepting that they are losing. This makes the journey more dangerous for the group of refugees, who are trying to reach unconquered parts of West Germany.
Salt to the Sea is a highly suspenseful novel filled with foreshadowing. For example, the Wilhelm Gustloff is described as an enormous, impressive ship with the possibility of saving thousands of refugees. But from the very beginning, Alfred mentions the possibility of the harbor being bombed. Then the whole mission would fail and half a million people would die.
The repetition of cold and dark imagery from the natural world helps to establish the novel’s mood of fear, suspense and doom. The landscape the refugees cross is full of deep lakes and dark forests. It is freezing cold and snow falls constantly. Paradoxically, in this dark, snow-covered landscape, Ingrid, the blind girl, seems to have the best vision. Her heightened senses help her to detect danger before the others, and she is aware when Florian steals something from Joana.
Nature also represents a power that is greater than the violence of war. Emilia reflects that the fresh, white snow covers over the dark truth of the war. Even though war can destroy the landscape, “[t]he Nazis couldn’t stop the wind and the snow. The Russians couldn’t take the sun or the stars.” In the same way, even though the Nazis destroyed Emilia’s school in Poland, she affirms that they can never take away her love of learning.
In this part of the book, Sepetys introduces the symbol of the stork. Emilia sees an enormous stork’s nest as she considers the secret that she would like to reveal to Joana. Usually, storks are a symbol of birth, since the stork is said to deliver newborn babies to expecting mothers. Back in Lwów, Emilia’s family had a stork’s nest in their yard. In March, when the natural world springs into life, the stork arrived at the nest. At the end of the summer, when the plants begin to die, the stork migrated. The same day that Emilia’s mother was giving birth, the stork left, and her mother died, along with what would have been her baby brother.
