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An obscure village in Poland, sheltered from ideas and

industrialization, seemed a safe place to store one¹s most precious

valuable: a 6-year-old boy. Or so it seemed to the parents who

abandoned their only son to protect him from the Nazis in the

beginning of Jerzy Kosinski¹s provocative 1965 novel The Painted Bird.

After his guardian Marta dies and her decaying corpse and hut are

accidentally engulfed in flames, the innocent young dark-haired,

dark-eyed outcast is obliged to trek from village to village in search

of food, shelter, and companionship. Beaten and caressed, chastised

and ignored, the unnamed protagonist survives the abuse inflicted by

men, women, children and beasts to be reclaimed by his parents 7 years

later--a cold, indifferent, and callous individual.

The protagonist¹s experiences and observations demonstrate that the

Holocaust was far too encompassing to be contained within the capsule

of Germany with its sordid concentration camps and sociopolitical

upheaval. Even remote and ³backward² villages of Poland were exposed

and sucked into the maelstrom of conflict. The significance of this

point is that it leads to another logical progression: Reaching

further than the Polish villages of 1939, the novel¹s implications

extend to all of us. Not only did Hitler¹s stain seep into even the

smallest crannies of the world at that time, it also spread beyond

limits of time and culture. Modern readers, likewise, are implicated

because of our humanity. The conscientious reader feels a sense of

shame at what we, as humans, are capable of through our cultural

mentalities. That is one of the more...