Content warning: This novel discusses the Holocaust, war, and violent war crimes.

Although Refugee presents each child’s individual story, one general theme cuts across all three storylines. Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud each undertake a journey toward a better life because all three children have suffered disruption in their homelands. Constructing this theme across disparate storylines suggests that the desire for a better life binds humanity together.

In following their separate migrations, Gratz also suggests that the concept of a safe haven isn’t dependent on geography. Places perceived as secure during one historic period become places to avoid during another time. Josef flees Germany for Cuba because Cuba is both stable and safe during the 1930s. Ironically, Isabel flees Josef’s promised land of Cuba to seek refuge in America because Castro’s leadership has made that same country perilous in the 1990s. Mahmoud’s flight from Syria to Germany in 2015 is equally ironic: Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s would have been a hostile place for Arab people.

According to Refugee, the journey to a better life depends less on geographic safe havens than on the universal determination of the people making the trip. All three children exploit every meager resource at their command to accomplish that goal.