Importance of Guns

Daniel sees people get shot for trying to be with their families, for losing a button off their shirt, for trying to escape the camps. Guns are objects of death and fear. When Daniel finally gets one as part of the resistance unit at Buchenwald, he feels ready for action and if he must die, then he will die knowing that he tried. Daniel carries a gun with him out of the camp and uses it when he and Peter are getting beaten up during a stop over at a small Polish town on their way back to Lodz.