I Am David

Anne Holm provides a few contextual details of the timeline of I am David, allowing the text to be interpreted from several different historical perspectives.

I am David is often studied from the point of view of Nazi Germany; the term “concentration camp” became synonymous with the genocide carried out by Germany between 1939 and 1945 when dictator Adolf Hitler declared his aim to the world to exterminate the Jewish race. Within this program, other “undesirables” were also targeted, imprisoned, and “exterminated,” such as gypsies, intellectuals, and mentally or physically disabled people. The Nazi program of extermination and the war triggered by their policy of aggressive expansionism resulted in the displacement of millions of people across Europe. Countless people were left homeless by the violent war that raged across Europe, East Asia, and the Pacific.

For these reasons, I am David is often interpreted by many readers as the story of a boy traveling across Europe in the final stages of World War II. However, contextual clues indicate that this reading may be inaccurate. “Undesirables” held in German-run concentration and extermination camps were forcibly relocated between 1939 and 1945. David is 12 and has no living memory of life before the concentration camp; this suggests that he has been held for longer than six years.