The Devil's Arithmetic characters

Appears from the start

A Jewish girl living in contemporary New York who is impatient with her family's repeated stories about the Holocaust. She would rather think about her own life than carry memories of events that happened before she was born.

Appears from the start

Hannah's younger brother. Aaron is preparing to take part in the Passover Seder and worries about performing his questions correctly in front of the family.

Appears from the start

Hannah's grandfather and a Holocaust survivor. The number tattooed on his arm and his anguished response to images of Nazi persecution are part of the family history Hannah finds difficult to understand.

Appears from the start

Grandpa Will's sister, also a survivor of the Holocaust. Gentle and attentive toward Hannah, she understands both her brother's distress and Hannah's resistance to the family's painful memories.

First appears in chapter 4

The woman Hannah is told is her aunt when she finds herself in an unfamiliar Polish village. Gitl is brisk, protective, and busy preparing for her brother's wedding while trying to make sense of Hannah's strange claims.

First appears in chapter 4

Gitl's brother and the uncle Hannah is expected to recognize. Cheerful and affectionate, he is preparing to marry Fayge and assumes Hannah's confusion comes from the illness that recently killed her parents.

First appears in chapter 5

A widowed villager and friend of Shmuel who is raising two young children. His warmth and practical manner make him part of the family circle gathering for Shmuel's wedding.

First appears in chapter 5

Yitzchak's very young daughter. She is shy, vulnerable, and closely dependent on the adults and older children around her.

First appears in chapter 5

Yitzchak's young son and Tzipporah's brother. He joins the other village children around Hannah during the wedding preparations.

First appears in chapter 7

Shmuel's bride, the educated daughter of a rabbi from a neighbouring village. Fayge loves Shmuel and approaches their wedding with dignity despite Hannah's increasingly urgent warnings.

First appears in chapter 13

A girl who has survived long enough in the concentration camp to understand its routines. Rivka teaches new prisoners how to preserve food and strength, read danger, and help one another without attracting attention.

First appears in chapter 13

Rivka's younger brother, another prisoner in the camp. The siblings watch over each other while relying on work assignments and shared knowledge to stay alive.