History Literature / TheDevilsArithmetic

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Gitl initially comes off as brusque and harsh (so much so that other villagers call her "Gitl The Bear" for her prickly nature), but under it all she's actually very compassionate and caring, taking a MamaBear role towards Hannah/Chaya as well as looking out for the other children in the camps. In the epilogue, it's revealed that by the time the camp was liberated, she was dangerously underweight even by concentration camp standards because she routinely shared her already meager rations with the children, and that she went on to found a charitable organization in her niece's name after the war

* TraumaInducedAmnesia

* DeathByAdaptation: A borderline example. In both [[spoiler: Hannah sacrifices herself and goes to the gas chambers in Rivka's place]]. In the novel, although [[spoiler:Chaya presumably dies]], Hannah does not experience it as [[spoiler:she only steps through the door of the gas chamber before she finds herself back in the present]]. In the film, she goes through the whole thing, complete with a shot of [[spoiler: Chana's body]], before waking up in her family's apartment.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: While the book is horrifyingly accurate overall, it is especially unlikely that Grandpa Will would have survived the Holocaust if [[spoiler: he was a Sonderkommando in 1942, as these prisoners were routinely murdered every few months in an effort to conceal the extent of the Nazis' crimes]]. It's a case of RealityIsUnrealistic since Will was based on Jane Yolen's own father.

* [[IllPretendIDidntHearThat I'll Pretend I Didn't See That]]: Implied to be the case in the book with the children hiding in the midden during inspections. Hannah notes that with the way the children leave their clothes lying outside the midden, it would be pretty obvious what was going on, but the inspectors seemingly take the stance that if they don't ''see'' the children out in the open with their own eyes, they aren't there. A later scene even has some of the older kids encouraging a child to run to the midden ''right in front of one of the inspectors who has clearly already seen him'', seemingly having reason to believe that the inspector will "forget" about the boy once he's out of sight. (Unfortunately, in that case it turns out to be moot; the child in question is so overwrought that he freezes up, and is consequently taken away and presumably killed.)

* [[IllPretendIDidntHearThat I'll Pretend I Didn't See That]]: Implied to be the case in the book with the children hiding in the midden during inspections. Hannah notes that with the way the children leave their clothes lying outside the midden, it would be pretty obvious what was going on, but the inspectors seemingly take the stance that if they don't ''see'' the children out in the open with their own eyes, they aren't there. A later scene even has some of the older kids encouraging a child to run to the midden ''right in front of one of the inspectors who has clearly already seen him'', seemingly having reason to believe that the inspector will "forget" about the boy once he's out of sight.

** Also, while Hannah and Rivka are [[AgeLift in their mid-teens]] in the film, in the book, they're both relatively young children themselves; Rivka is ten and Hannah/Chaya is about twelve. [[spoiler:Hannah becomes an straight example, as do her close-in-age friends from the shtetl (Rachel, Yente, Esther, and Shifre), while Rivka becomes an aversion thanks to Hannah's HeroicSacrifice.]]

* NoPronunciationGuide: Some of the Yiddish names aren't spelled particularly intuitively.
** Chaya is pronounced with a guttural 'chh': KHAI-yuh (HAI-yuh works in a pinch.)
** Yitzchak's name includes the same guttural chh: YITZ-khok (or YITZ-hock).
** The words "badchan" and "shadchan" also use the guttural 'chh' sound.
** Shmuel is pronounced SHMOOL.
** Gitl rhymes with 'little', with the first letter G being a hard g as in "golf", not a soft G like "gentle".
** Fayge is pronounced FEI-guh.
** Shifre is pronounced SHIFF-ruh.
** Leye is pronounced LEI-uh
** Wolfe is pronounced VOOL-fuh.
** Commandant Breuer's name is pronounced BROY-er.
** Tzipporah's name is pronounced TZIP-pour-ah, with the first two letters being pronounced like the "tz" in "quartz". (ZIP-pour-ah is sometimes used as a simplified alternative.)

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Hannah and her mother's argument about her Grandpa Will at the beginning of the story. On one hand, her mother is correct to point out that Grandpa Will isn't a bad person, but rather a person who's lived through hell and is deeply traumatized as a result. On the other hand, it's also understandable why a child would be leery of an adult who seemingly erupts into screaming rages without warning on a regular basis, regardless of what the reason is that's driving it.

** The first two letters of Tzipporah's name are both audible, pronounced like the "tz" in "quartz". The full name is pronounced TZIP-pour-ah (ZIP-pour-ah is sometimes used as a simplified alternative).

** The first two letters of Tzipporah's name are both audible, pronounced like the "tz" in "quartz". The full name is pronounced TZIP-pour-ah (ZIP-pour-ah is sometimes uses as a simplified alternative).

** Tzipporah's name is pronounced with both the T and Z being audible, with the sound being similar to the "tz" in "quartz". The full name is pronounced TZIP-pour-ah (ZIP-pour-ah is sometimes uses as a simplified alternative).

** Finally, Tzipporah is pronounced TZIP-pour-ah, with the first two letters being pronounced like the end of "quartz" (ZIP-pour-ah is sometimes uses as a simplified alternative).

** Gitl is pronounced 'little', but with a G as in golf, not a J as in Joseph.

** Finally, Tzipporah is pronounced TSIP-pour-uh (simplified version: ZIP-pour-uh).

** Finally, Tzipporah is pronounced ZIP-per-uh.

* AloofDarkHairedGirl: Gitl can come across as this when Hannah first arrives in the shtetl, especially to Yitzchak the butcher, who has a thing for her. Some of the young girls in the village also seem to admire her, calling her "Tante (Aunt) Gitl" and "Gitl the Bear."

* [[IllPretendIDidntHearThat I'll Pretend I Didn't See That]]: Implied to be the case in the book with the children hiding in the midden during inspections. Hannah notes that with the way the children leave their clothes lying outside the midden, it would be pretty obvious what was going on, but the inspectors seemingly take the stance that if they don't ''see'' the children out in the open with their own eyes, they aren't there. A later scene even has some of the older kids encouraging a child to run to the midden ''right in front of one of the inspectors who has clearly already seen him'', seemingly believing that the inspector will "forget" about the boy once he's out of sight.