Fridge / The Kommandents Mistress

• Fridge Brilliance: Quite a few counts:
  • By the time you finish the book, you need to question how reliable both Max and Rachel are as narrators and just how accurate the historian is to figure out the canon ending.
  • Doubling as a Bilingual Bonus, Rachel's birth name is Leah Abramson. She goes by Rachel Levi post-liberation. Leah is Hebrew for "weary", Rachel means "lamb". She was weary before the war, but seems to be a lost lamb once she's liberated.
    • Then, her husband David's last name is Levi— which, according to the Book of Genesis, Levi was the third son of Jacob and Leah. According to the Torah, the name "Levi" refers to Leah's hope for Jacob to join with her. Just switch the genders, and that describes David wanting a new life far from the terror of the Nazi regime, while Rachel is still mentally trapped in Auschwitz. The fact that Rachel doesn't want to go by her birth name of Leah is also indicative of being unable— or unwilling— to move on.
    • David brings home Baby Althea, who lost her parents to the Nazis. Rachel is hesitant to touch her at first because she seems so fragile, but it is also symbolic of how Rachel cannot let go of her past: she can't move on and heal. Althea means "healing" or "healing herb" in Greek. (Yet another contrast to the poem Leah/Rachel writes while imprisoned called "Bitter Herbs".)
  • Max's and Rachel's stories have 10 chapters with 10 scenes each, meant to imitate the rigid, orderly, and authoritarian style of the Nazi regime, Word of God confirms.
  • Leah/Rachel purposely gives Max the impression she does not speak German. She understands what he says to her clear as day but he doesn't understand when speaks Hungarian and Yiddish. Upon reading the entire book, it's metaphorical for how the Nazis who were just Punch-Clock Villains simply couldn't understand the suffering they inflicted, and made no effort to.
• Fridge Horror: Every time that Max wants sex, it's when some kind of murderous action against the inmates is going on: selektion, death marches, and "Action". Just what kind of monster is he?