Character Analysis
Art never meets his brother Richieu, who was born before the war. In 1943, as conditions worsened in Europe, Anja’s sister Tosha took Richieu to stay with a relative in another Polish town. When the Germans arrive in town to take the Jews to the camps, Tosha commits suicide and poisons Richieu, as well as her own children.
For most of his life, Art knows Richieu only as a photograph, a photograph of a cherubic boy with a tragic death that Art, the living son, could never live up to. Art provides Richieu’s photograph in his dedication to Part II, which is dedicated to Richieu and to Art’s children.