Metaphor: Angel
It is difficult to comprehend the horror of being kept in a concentration camp, to understand all the emotions involved. Forced to simply wait for imminent suffering or death, one might very well lose one's orientation and sense of identity. This is what happens with Rosa, for “she felt light, not like someone walking but like someone in a faint, in trance, arrested in a fit, someone who is already a floating angel, alert and seeing everything, but in the air, not there, not touching the road”. She has already become the dead among the living, a spirit, a wraith, a shell of a human being.
Simile: Complexions
Rosa marvels that baby Magda does not look at all like her; she has blond hair and blue eyes while Rosa's skin is "dark like cholera." Calling attention to Rosa's darker skin, this comparison to a deadly disease also suggests dirtiness and sickness, recalling the oft-repeated Nazi characterizations of Jews.
Metaphor: Rosa
Rosa is deemed a "walking cradle," a simple metaphor that suggests how she rocks Magda on her bosom as she traverses the roads. Magda is thus safe and quietly stowed away, which is what allows her to remain undetected for so long.
