Refugee is more than a story about children fleeing their homelands, it is a story about what unites us all: love, family, and perseverance. Christina Diaz Gonzalez, award-winning author of Moving Target A gripping, visceral, and hold-your-breath intense story of three young refugees. John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down An intelligent, human, harrowing read. Ellen Silva, NPR Meant to be read, discussed, and shared widely. School Library Journal A haunting fictional treatment of historic events. Booklist Unflinching and sympathetic. The New York Times A stunning, poignant novel. The soldiers throw tear gas and take the refugees into custody,loading the subdued refugees up in trucks and driving them to a detention facility almost all the way to Austria. Then, Mahmoud and, Mahmoud: Somewhere on the Mediterranean Sea 2015, 11 days from home (2), the bottom of the sea, and says a funeral prayer for him. Complete your free account to access notes and highlights. He felt the stirrings of indignation, of anger, of sympathy. Mahmoud is a twelve-year-old boy "with a long, strong nose, thick black eyebrows, and short-cropped black hair" (12). Head down, hoodie up, eyes on the ground. Them other two ships is smaller and faster. Just then, Mahmouds father receives a text about a boat arriving. He hadnt forgotten that if he were wearing his armband, this Isabel put her hands to her mouth but couldnt help laughing again with everyone else. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." When they pulled his white linen shirt off him, his back was covered with welts. Instant PDF downloads. More of them wore the brown shirts and red swastika armbands of the Sturmabteilung, Adolf Hitlers storm troopers. Josefs mother and father were there too, lying on the floor at the feet of the Brownshirts. In Hungary, the family is about to be deported back to Syria when Mahmoud leads a refugee march out of the detention center. Too many. Bishar al-Assad. Safe on the sidewalk across the street, clutching Hana and Waleed, Mahmoud suddenly realized his mother had still been in the building. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. Mahmoud had been doing his math homework at the kitchen table, but he automatically put his pencil down and went to the sink to wash up. Youre on CNN, a woman said in Spanish, her face nothing but a silhouette against the light. Josef jumped, and his mother took a frightened step back. Mahmoud Bishara is a 12-year-old boy from Aleppo, Syria who lives in 2015 in the book Refugee. After the June 2005 election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's president, however, the situation deteriorated. Creating notes and highlights requires a free LitCharts account. The car skids to a stop, and Youssef, Fatima (with Hana), Mahmoud: Kilis, Turkey 2015, 2 days from home, Mahmoud: Izmir, Turkey 2015, 4 days from home, Mahmoud: Izmir, Turkey 2015, 11 days from home (1), One week after the boat to Greece was originally supposed to arrive, the smuggler tells, Mahmoud: Izmir, Turkey 2015, 11 days from home (2), Mahmoud: Somewhere on the Mediterranean Sea 2015, 11 days from home (1), Mahmoud: Somewhere on the Mediterranean Sea 2015, 11 days from home (2), Fatima continues to sob at having given away Hana, and, Mahmoud: Somewhere on the Mediterranean Sea 2015, 11 days from home (3). Josef took a seat in the section with the men. Her lunch hadnt been much bigger than the catsjust a few beans and a small pile of white rice. Source (s) Refugee (Alan Gratz) Josef had never seen anything so big. Another policeman had caught his arm! Tomorrow, hed told Mahmouds father. As she blew, her fingers tapped out the notes she knew by heart. The girls yanked up the string, and they all dropped to the deck behind the rail where the man couldnt see them laughing. So we have money! Refugee weaves together the stories of three families as they seek sanctuary in other countries. I want you to go to college first, his mother told him. Mahmoud and Waleed went tumbling, and the soldier in the back rolled on top of them. She saw her papi just as he reared back and threw a bottle that smashed into the line of police along the seawall. The Brownshirt whod taken his father away on Kristallnacht had said, Well come for you soon enough, but Josef hadnt waited. A few hours later, they watched from the promenade as tugboats pushed the MS St. Louis away from the dock, and passengers threw confetti and celebrated and blew tearful kisses good-bye. Luis didnt have time to answer. Josef Landau, Isabel Fernandez, and Mahmoud Bishara are the primary protagonists of Refugee. He screamed even louder than his little sister, drowning her out. Thinking about Klaus made Josef think about other things, but he blinked away the bad memories. Without the maps, theyd be lost. Book hotel rooms. Unfortunately, the boat runs aground onto rocks and pops, dumping all the passengers in the freezing water. He wanted to look away, but he was worried that might make the guards think he was hiding something. My darlings! He kissed the tops of their heads again and again, then jumped back. Without saying anything, Isabel ran next door to the Castilloss house. 1st trip on a cruise like boat. From there, they could choose to return to Cubaand Castroor languish in a refugee camp while the United States decided what to do with them. Just not to them. If you were invisible, the bad people couldn't hurt you, that was true. She ran toward Mahmoud and embraced him, Waleed, and Hana. Just ahead of them, two boys had another boy up against what was left of a wall, about to take the bag of bread he carried. He stayed there the rest of the trip, his armband securely in place and as visible as possible. Mahmoud lived in a refugee camp with his family in the city of Jenin, which is the West Bank. Three times a day they ate delicious meals in a dining room laid out with white linen tablecloths, crystal glasses, and shining silverware, and stewards waited on them hand and foot. He stood in a long line with his family, waiting at the border to gain admission into Turkey, near the city of Kilis. "Mahmoud's mother broke down in tears, and his father let the life jackets he carried drop to the ground. Josef watched as they dragged Papa away to the sounds of Mamas sobs and Ruths wails. Missiles and bombs thudded nearby, close enough to shake loose parts of walls. No! The shadows threw him to the floor. This is what they do. They fail, but they are not sent back to Germany. The building groaned again, and a kitchen on the top floor began to tip toward the street. He only manages to survive by staying off everyone's radar. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Where are Waleed and Hana? his father asked. If theres enough people, Josef reminded his sister. We have to get out of here! Mahmouds mother said, putting Hana in Mahmouds arms. thinks that he will never forget the fear of being so powerless in that moment. Nothing about him actually matched the pictures on Herr Meiers presentation on how to identify a Jew. A skeleton in a threadbare suit three sizes too big for him. Women with burns. (full context) .are glassy, but he is able to talk. Josef had been a fool, and now he and his family were going to pay the price. We didnt want to leave our homes! another man yelled. Fatima Bishara. No, we dont, Seor Castillo said. It was getting harder and harder to get food in the city. And the Kurds hold all this territory here. After school, Mahmoud, Waleed, and their mother, is gone. Amara laughed and took his hand, and the two of them danced as best they could in the swaying boat. Theyll come for us soon enough, he said. One. The car skids to a stop, and Youssef, Fatima (with, Mahmoud: Izmir, Turkey 2015, 11 days from home (1), Mahmoud tells the man that the family has nowhere to go, and that his sister, Mahmoud: Somewhere on the Mediterranean Sea 2015, 11 days from home (1), He then hears Fatima scream out, and watches as she struggles to lift a crying, for help, but the dinghy isnt slowing down. Creating notes and highlights requires a free LitCharts account. This gains a large amount of media attention, and Austrians greet them at the border with food, water, and medicine. Could they? No. Complete your free account to request a guide. Once you were in one of the EU countries, though, like Greece or Hungary or Germany, you could apply for asylum and be granted official refugee status. Instant downloads of all 1699 LitChart PDFs One of the men stopped at the drivers-side window and pointed his rifle at Mahmouds father. Waleed didnt know it, but hed saved the day. The bed broke into pieces. None of them were. They ran out of food too fast. I cant stay here, Papi said. Dad waved their fears away. Mahmoud Bishara is leaving Syria during the volatile regime of Bashar al-Assad in 2015. . He glanced around the little cabin like the walls were closing in. All Mahmoud wanted to do was curl up into a ball and disappear. Refugee Character Analysis Josef Landau Josef is a 13-year-old Jewish boy living in Germany in the 1930s. Syria is still engaged in this brutal and confusing war and the civilians are affected irreparably. Mahmoud's dad. I saw on the TV theyre accepting refugees. Its a trick, Papa said when the door was closed. Assad and the Syrian army? By now, May of 1939, most countries had stopped admitting Jewish refugees, or had lots of official applications you had to fill out and file and pay for before they would let you in. Teachers and parents! Lights came on in houses nearby, and curtains ruffled as people looked out at the noise. We can stay there until all this is over. If a plane dropped a barrel One day, the bombings and war hit home, literally. While hed been praying, Waleed joined him. It was a salsa tune she liked to play, but this time she listened past the music. Fidel Castro was an old man with liver spots on his forehead, gray hair, a big bushy gray beard, and bags under his eyes. We cannot continue guarding the borders of the United States while they send their CIA to instigate riots in Havana. We werent together when it started, her grandfather said. What did the Serbian taxi driver do after stopping the taxi on the highway? His brother. Youre going to Turkey? II went to engineering school there, Mahmouds father said. A mural painted on the side of the gas station showed President Assad, his dark hair cut short and a thin mustache underneath his pointy nose. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Waleed sat still as a statue, and he looked like one too. Rifles boomed, and Isabel ducked. Fatima Bishara Quotes in Refugee The Refugee quotes below are all either spoken by Fatima Bishara or refer to Fatima Bishara. Russia, Iran, and Sunni Muslims are allied to Al-Assad and they are fighting the rebels who are backed by Turkey, the Gulf Arab States, Jordan, and partially the USA. The soldiers might be with the Syrian army, or with the Syrian rebels. Maana, we told them. In the second it took for the sound to grow from a breeze to a tornado, Mahmoud dropped his pencil, put his hands to his ears, and threw himself under the kitchen table. When another raft made out of an old refrigerator sank, everyone laughed. The family drives away, but soon run into some rebel soldiers. An hour later, they are stopped by four soldiers with automatic rifles. Heart in his throat, skin tingling with goose bumps, Josef took the paper armband with the Star of David off his arm, slid it into the inside pocket of his jacket, and stepped through the door. He has a mother, a father, a younger brother, and a baby sister. Of course, Captain Schroeder said. Ruthie had been born the year Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany. Based on the events of the story, which most likely will happen?