Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 Summary

The exiles get off the cattle car, but they are not used to the steady ground and the bright sunlight. They are told to walk in sets of four towards the village, which they can barely make out. After walking a mile, they start to make out small, whitewashed buildings of the town of Rubtsovsk. They march into the town's square and told not to move, which confuses Esther because there is nowhere to go to. A man named Popravka begins to ask what they did in Vilna. Samuel, or Tata, tells the man that he was an electrical engineer by training back in Vilna. He then tells the group that they will be working 12 kilometers outside the town in a gypsum mine.

As they walk towards the mine together as a family, Esther asks her father why the...