What's your opinion of Nowak, the guard who helped Adam?

What's your opinion of Nowak, the guard who helped Adam?

I loved him! I think he was on their side all along but had to play his role as a German guard. I am so happy that Adam was saved. We will never know how many such guards came to help Jews survive. I have to believe that many of the Nazi soldiers had no choice and tried to be kind and helpful when they could get away with it.

There is a lot of nuance in this novel which I like. It is so easy to judge people as good or bad, when most of us are both. Here, we have a Nazi doing good - when he can, which while it isn't always, is still good.

I think he walked a very fine line by helping Jewish citizens get what they needed to stay alive. Even though he often overcharged them, at least he was willing to help while other Nazi guards would have just let the Jews die in the street of starvation. Without Nowak, Adam would not have been able to leave the ghetto. I do not think he hated Jews but he was caught up in a situation he could not change.

I think he did what he could to help. He was in a situation where he knew the people being imprisoned and tried to do what he could, while not endangering his own life. I think most of us might do the same in that situation.

He's another character in this book who is flawed and can't be seen as all good or all bad. On one hand he takes bribes from the Jews and overcharges them, but he does help them-as he taunts them. He's probably showing his conflicts about watching the Jews being put in this horrible situation while at the same time he is a German soldier who is supposed to hate them. In the end, he comes through for Adam and gives him and the two boys at least a chance to escape the horrors to come.

Unlike many WWII novels, the character in We Must Not Think of Ourselves are not all good or all evil. Without guards like Nowak the jews in the Ghetto would have had less food and no chance at escape. The items that he was given as payment would be lost if the Jews were sent to camps.

I think Nowak tried to help where he could, but I also think if it were a choice between endangering himself or helping someone else, he would have looked out for himself.

As I discussed in respoinse to another question . . . the Nazis conscripted many young men. They had no choice but to serve and follow orders. They were not all believers in the Nazi agenda, and there are myriad stories of heroism and bravery. They were imprisoned (metaphoricallly) just as the Jews were being held captive in the ghetto. Nowak was a good example of a man who had to play along to survive but was not committed to the Nazi agenda.

As with any other person who was able to risk so much to help someone during this time, I have admiration and respect for him. I often wonder if I could have been so brave during that time to put my own life at risk to help others.

Nowak was such an interesting character. A guard at the ghetto, who left both Adam and the reader guessing at what he would do. What were his beliefs? He certainly taunted his victims. left them wondering if they could trust him. His character did seem to change after Duda and his family were killed. Did that make him aware of just how evil the Nazis were or was Duda holding something over Nowak? We will never know.
At the end he did come through and made it possible for Adam to escape.

Another casualty of this horrible war. At great risk he tried to aid the jews held prisoner in the Ghetto. He did what he could to, never promising too much he offered a slim chance of hope. No doubt his conscious was trying to process this extreme injustice.

I think Nowak is an interesting and complex character who demonstrates how both good and evil can exist within the same person. He tells Adam that Henryk was killed because he tried to play both sides of the war, and yet, he is doing the same thing. Like everyone else, he is trying to survive, using whatever skills and connections he has available to him.