54 pages • 1 hour read
Louise MurphyThe True Story of Hansel and Gretel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “Brother and Sister”
Gretel and Hansel watch Magda’s hut through dense snowfall. Eventually, Magda emerges to collect firewood, but she tells the children that she cannot help them. Hansel and Gretel gather firewood, too, and follow Magda into her hut. She does not make them leave. Hansel notices Magda’s huge oven.
An elderly priest enters the hut and says that Magda must get rid of the children. He reminds Magda that she only survived the Nazis because of a fire that destroyed records of her gypsy parentage. He also reminds Magda of the false identification records he obtained for her and says that the Nazis will kill her and those she loves if she shelters Jews. Magda expresses hope that the war will soon end with the Germans defeated.
Gretel wonders how people, like the priest, can tell that she and Hansel are Jewish. She thinks about how her father encouraged them to learn other languages but forbade them to use Yiddish, a Jewish language. When the priest tries to confirm that Hansel is circumcised, Gretel stops him by biting his arm. Magda says that she can explain Hansel’s circumcision by saying that he is one of the Karaites, a Christian sect that believes in circumcising males. She asks the Priest to help obtain identification for the children and accuses him of aiding the Nazis when he resists. She also reveals that, despite his supposed celibacy, the Priest has an illegitimate daughter and a granddaughter who is now pregnant.
As Magda and the Priest continue to argue about the risks of keeping Hansel and Gretel, Magda reveals that the Priest is her brother, called Father Piotr. She partially blames him for their mother’s death and says he must help her to atone for his failings. Piotr indicates that he may do what Magda has asked. He leaves the hut. While Hansel sleeps, Magda asks Gretel to make soup and leads her outside to retrieve hidden ingredients.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Nelka”
Father Piotr’s pregnant granddaughter, Nelka, visits the hut. Hansel admires her honey-colored hair and unusually happy expression. Magda reveals that Nelka’s Polish husband has been detained in Russia and may be dead. She also says that Nelka’s friend, Telek, is in love with her. Nelka plans to bathe Hansel, Gretel, and Magda, and asks Telek, who has been hiding outside, to get water and a fire.
Over Magda’s protests, Nelka makes plans to wash most of the hut. She knows that it harbors lice. Hansel tries to hide his circumcision from Nelka, but he eventually allows her to undress and bathe him. He and Gretel both relish the warmth of the bath. Telek drives lice from the walls with boiling water, and Nelka burns them with kerosene. Telek and Nelka stay for dinner and spend the night. Magda says that she got her large oven from a baker whose babies she delivered. Hansel snuggles up to Nelka in the night and feels deeply connected to her and her baby.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Pictures”
Father Piotr brings Magda peroxide to lighten Hansel’s dark hair. Newly blond, Hansel says that he would like to look like the Nazi soldiers. Gretel scolds him, but he likes that “Nobody tells them what to do” (44). Gretel reminds Hansel to be as useful to Magda as possible so that she will continue to shelter them. The children spend hours outside. Gretel occasionally thinks of their childhood before the Nazi invasion, but Hansel does not remember life before the ghetto.
After several days, Father Piotr returns with another man. The man explains how he will splice photos of Hansel and Gretel’s faces onto pictures of other children to help them forge identification papers. A week passes. Father Piotr brings Magda the finished photographs. In the images, Hansel and Gretel appear to be Christians celebrating their First Communions. The priest also brings a book of prayers and a rosary. Though Magda resists, she agrees to teach Hansel and Gretel Christian customs in case they are questioned. Gretel does not like the photo of her face on another girl’s body but tries to believe that it really is her. She thinks about how there are no photos of her actual childhood.
Chapter 9 Summary: “The Mechanik”
The Mechanik sees wild ponies in the woods as he walks to retrieve his motorcycle and look for his children. He thinks about how German horses and supplies were lost when the Germans attempted to invade Russia and feels happy. The sound of Nazi soldiers interrupts his thoughts. The Mechanik quickly moves away into the woods instead of continuing toward his motorcycle. He searches for the bodies of Hansel and Gretel and is nearly hysterical as he thinks of his hunger and the other imminent threats to his life.
The Mechanik hears German spoken again and spots another soldier in the woods. He worries his children may be hiding nearby. Though he notes the humanity of the soldier, the Mechanik strangles him. He takes supplies from the soldier and hides the body beneath the leaves. He intends to save some of the provisions for his wife but cannot resist eating and drinking them all as he walks. Returning to the partisan camp, the Mechanik tries to convince himself that Hansel and Gretel may still be alive.
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Village Piaski”
Hansel, Gretel, and Magda walk to Piaski, the nearby village, to apply for ration cards that will provide them with more food. Magda quizzes the children on the details of their assumed identities. She trusts Gretel to answer questions but worries about Hansel’s impulsivity. They near the village, and Magda tells the children how, before the Nazis came, the village smelled of hearty cooking and fragrant produce. Gretel remembers her kind grandfather, or Zayde, bringing her an orange every morning.
The village’s only sizeable buildings are a church, a school, and an administrative office with a jail. Hansel spots the dilapidated school and asks about the portraits of Lenin and Stalin inside. Magda tells him that he cannot attend, as school is only held weekly. “They teach you to recognize all the ranks of the German army and how to address our conquerors,” she says. “That’s all the school for Poles” (62). Gretel reveals that she knows Polish, German, and French. Magda reminds her not to mention that to the Nazis.
Magda reflects on how she has grown to like the children but tries to steel herself against these feelings. Villagers turn away from Magda. Two new characters, Basha and Andrzej, observe the children and Magda. They speculate about their mission in the village and wonder if a man named Jedrik, who previously betrayed Jewish villagers, will also betray Hansel and Gretel to the Nazis. Andrzej says that an SS officer, a powerful German official, is coming to the village. They worry that the Nazis will learn that they are still collecting rations for their deceased baby. Outside, Magda and the children enter the administrative building.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
While the novel’s first chapters explained how Hansel, Gretel, and their parents arrived in western Poland, this section of the novel deepens readers’ understanding of that setting. It introduces new characters and relationships, describes the layout of the village Piaski, and reveals specifics about life under Nazi occupation. Father Piotr’s introduction, in particular, suggests the ways in which religion could function during World War II. As the village priest, Father Piotr feels relatively protected from allegations about his Gypsy ancestry. He instructs Hansel and Gretel to pretend to be Christians while disguising their Judaism. Talismans such as rosaries and first communion photos are less sacred objects to the children than they are tools for survival.
The novel continues its emphasis on memory and the effects of the past on the present day. When Magda claims that she cannot teach Hansel and Gretel Christian rites that she has forgotten, Piotr delivers a poignant warning: “If you want to live,” he says, “you had better remember, sister” (48). The priest addresses Magda, but his words have prophetic resonance for Gretel, too. She must assume the false memories of the Christian girl in the doctored communion photo or risk exposing herself as a Jew. Later in the novel, Gretel’s temporary loss of her memories endangers her life.
Fairy tale allusions in this section of the novel center around the enormous oven in Magda’s hut. Though the witch in Grimm’s fairy tale attempts to cook Hansel and Gretel in her version of the oven, there is reason for readers to expect a better outcome for the children in the novel. Magda’s oven was a gift she received for helping a family. It warms the hut and allows for the baking of bread. When Hansel first spots the oven, his impulse is to laugh with pleasure at its size and warmth.
Though Chapters 6-10 largely feature grim conversations and unpleasant tasks, they also provide the novel’s first lighthearted scenes. When Nelka visits Magda’s hut, her warmth and kindness enchant Hansel and brighten the somber mood of the narrative; “Gretel lifted her arms and wanted to dance” after Nelka rid the children and the hut of lice (41). The snug warmth of the hut while Nelka visits is in stark contrast, literally and figuratively, to the brutal cold outside.
