No Pretty Pictures

Niania means nanny in Polish, so she is Anita and her brother’s nanny. Anita doesn’t disclose Niania’s real name. Her identity centers on her relationship with Anita. Of the adult figures in Anita’s life, Anita trusts Niania the most. She represents stability and security, whereas the other adults symbolize danger. While leaving the Krakow ghetto, Anita sees Niania and thinks of a “beautiful angel” (52). Later, in the Epilogue, the adult Lobel returns and appends the angel image, calling her a “demented angel” (189). The latter description conveys Niania’s cartoonish figure. Her outbursts and headaches make her somewhat ridiculous, and the gap between her words and actions adds to her humorous quality, creating a kind of irony or subversion of expectations.

Niania is wary of Jews. She doesn’t like kosher food, blames Jews for the death of Jesus Christ, and frequently mutters mean things about them. Yet Niania works for a Jewish family and risks her life for Anita and her brother. In Niania, the reader sees that what a person says doesn’t always reflect how they’ll behave. Niania says things that many readers might find offensive or antisemitic, yet what she does for Anita and her brother is lifesaving. She confronts the Nazis, finds out Anita and her brother are at the prison, and starts the chain of events that saves them.

Niania also introduces the prominence of Christianity in the text. As Niania is Christian—Catholic, specifically—Anita seems drawn to her religion instead of her parents’ Judaism. Anita trusts Niania and feels close to her, so she identifies with her religion. During the war, Niania and Christianity keep the siblings safe, while Judaism jeopardizes them. It’s hard for Anita to separate Niania from Christianity because Niania introduces her to the faith, and she’s the most influential figure in Anita’s life. In Sweden, Anita continues to think about Niania and practice Christianity, and Anita’s emotional reaction to her death demonstrates her crucial role in shaping Anita’s identity.

Hitler, the Nazi leader, appears only once in No Pretty Pictures; in the Prologue, Lobel says “Hitler’s armies” (xii) destroyed her comfortable life and doesn’t mention him again. As No Pretty Pictures focuses on Anita’s immediate experiences during World War II and the Holocaust, Hitler’s absence makes sense; Anita has no direct interaction with Hitler the person and is too young to understand the political context behind her experiences. The Nazis surround her and are key figures, so Hitler is an implicit key figure even when not explicitly present.

Hitler was a totalitarian leader—that is, he had total control of Germany and the countries it invaded. There was no Nazi constitution, and Hitler could enact, abolish, or modify laws whenever he wanted. In The Origins of Totalitarianism political theorist and Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt examines the relationship between Hitler and his party and concludes, “[T]hey act always in his name”—Hitler had “total responsibly for everything done in the movement” (Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951, p. 375).

The Nazis create Anita’s dangerous environment, placing her in a constant series of life-or-death situations. Despite their looming presence, they have no names and hardly any voice or dialogue. When Anita hides the matzo, a Nazi asks her something in German, and when she hides in the attic in the Krakow ghetto, she hears the Nazis’ antisemitic shouts. In the prison, she grabs a Nazi, but he “didn’t say anything”—he shakes her off as if she’s a “yelping, not especially dangerous dog” (81). As key figures, the Nazis leave an impression on Anita. She can vividly describe them and their human traits, but Anita can’t “think of the Germans as real people” (18). Her assessment of the Nazis relates to Arendt’s thesis: It’s as if the Nazis aren’t individuals but machines programmed by Hitler.

In Hitler’s Willing Executioners, political scientist Daniel Goldhagen argues that Germans harbored a uniquely virulent strain of antisemitism that made the Holocaust possible (Goldhagen, Daniel. Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Knopf, 1996). They weren’t only acting on Hitler’s behalf but out of hateful personal beliefs. Anita’s story confirms and undercuts Goldhagen’s thesis. In the death march, no one forced the Nazi soldier to kill the woman. The Nazi made that choice on his own. At the same time, the Nazis let Niania give Anita and her brother warm clothes as they take them to the prison. At the Plaszow camp, the Nazis protect Anita’s brother from the anguished mother whose teen son they just shot. The brief moments of leniency complicate the portrait of the Nazis and show why it’s hard to reduce the motivations of the nameless, lethal figures to a single, concrete origin.