Summary

In the first section of the story “A Day at Harmenz,” the narrator speaks briefly with Mrs. Haneczka a woman who used to get food for him when he was first brought into the camp. She offers him food now, but he won’t take it because he believes she had given him enough food when he was poor in the camp. He had some good soap to give her as a gift but someone has stolen it. She tells him not to worry as Ivan has given her some soap that day. The narrator recognizes it is the soap that he had planned to give her.

A Jew begins giving Tadek a hard time for not taking Mrs. Haneczka’s food. Tadek reminds him that he had killed his own people for stealing and that his own son has marked...