The gold wedding ring, a family heirloom from Alina’s mother, begins as a conventional symbol of love and commitment but evolves into a symbol of Alina’s growth into an empowered and independent woman able to rise to the challenge of unthinkable suffering and the humiliation of powerlessness and emerge triumphant and in control.

Although the boy she loves comes from a prominent and successful family (Tomasz’s father is a respected doctor), Alina comes from a working-class background, her family maintaining a farm for generations. She has no fortune to bring to the wedding. When Tomasz prepares to leave for his medical studies in Warsaw, Alina fears the distance may be more than their tender love can withstand. Her mother, seeking to soothe her unhappy daughter, gives her the ring and assures her that “when the time is right” (27), Tomasz will slip the ring on her finger. The ring at that point represents Alina’s resolve to find fulfillment as the life partner of the boy she loves.

Then the war happens. Alina initially clings to the ring as a symbol of her love for the missing Tomasz, but it takes on new meaning when Alina arrives at the Soviet-held camp in Buzuluk, where the camp guard turns her away, saying the camp is already too full.