Content Warning: This section mentions wartime violence, death, antisemitism, and the Holocaust.

The title of the book hints at one of its major themes. With the story focused on the Jewish resistance within Nazi-occupied Poland, one of the ideas that it explores is the different ways people respond to oppression.

At the outset, two responses are presented, both on behalf of the oppressed. Chaya, the protagonist, is a courier, and her work involves stealth, deception, and a high amount of risk; she has to smuggle information and supplies into the ghettos (and, on occasion, people out of them). The point of Chaya and other couriers’ work is to provide hope, relief, and even escape to the people trapped inside the ghettos. It is a form of resistance that does not involve direct confrontation with the oppressor.

By contrast, Chaya’s work with Akiva, the ZOB, and ultimately the partisans involves armed resistance, which does bring her into direct conflict with the Nazis. Chaya and other resistance members justify their use of violence as self-defense—a response to the Nazis’ ongoing atrocities. The point of Akiva and the ZOB’s armed resistance is not to win the battle; this is an impossibility given the resources and manpower at their disposal.