A message in a bottle and a poem are one in the same. Paul Celan would argue that a poem, and more broadly language, is not timeless and that catastrophic events exert a living mark on a language.
Different languages can then be used to alter the time-dependent message that is to be sent through the medium of poetry. The literary applications of this principle clarify Celan’s argument. The Holocaust was principally an oppression of the Jewish community by the Germans. In terms of language, Yiddish was the language of the victim while German was that of the murderous oppressor. An effective author would then choose to use Yiddish or Hebrew to compose a tragedy about the horrors experienced during the Holocaust. Consequently, the effect of large- scale events on language can be used retrospectively to assist in determining the time period a work was written.
Ida Fink chooses to portray to the story “A Dog” in the form of a tragedy as opposed to an epic. This is identifiable from the details released in the story along with the emotional arc of the story. The only information about the setting is time. The reader knows that the dog first appeared on the same day the Sino-Japanese incident began, and that the rest of the story continues through the time period of the Second World War. The limited number of details about the setting are characteristic of a tragedy. Additionally, the story begins with a light-hearted tone describing Ching’s appearance and the neighbors’ reactions to him. Once the Germans come to take the Jewish family, Ching demonstrates his defiance to the Germans. Fink chooses to wait until the last two paragraphs to release the information that Ching was hanged.  This has a profound effect on the audience, particularly those who have owned a dog in the past and can empathize with the family’s loss. The layout of “A Dog” along with an analysis of the details provided leads to the logical conclusion that the story is a tragedy.
The tragic death of Ching serves as a symbol. The defiance of Agata, which occurred after the family fled the ghetto, enraged the Germans. Their inability to locate or gain information about the missing family made them feel “powerless”. In their rage and frustration, the decision to hang Ching was made. Ching’s death served no purpose to the Germans, except for as an outlet for their anger. Here, a statement about the Germans as a whole is being emphasized. The death of Ching served the same purpose as the murder of millions of Jews: nothing. There was nothing to be gained from their deaths other than the empowering feeling felt by the Germans during their murders. It feels as though Fink is trying to show that the Holocaust as whole served no useful purpose and was merely the violent release of anger.
Both “Traces” and “A Dog” both have a passage focusing on the Jewish defiance of the Germans. In “Traces” the children were asked by the SS-man to identify their parents, but “they were all silent”. By refusing to cooperate, they are resisting the Germans until death.  This near perfectly resembles the passage from “A Dog” during which the SS-men tell Ching to locate his master.
In both stories defenseless characters resist the orders of more powerful adversary. Kovner and Fink both demonstrate that even the weakest can still stand up in the face of a moral injustice and refuse to be manipulated, saving their dignity till death.
