Refugee (Alan Gratz Novel)
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50 free Refugee (Alan Gratz Novel) trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Alan Gratz's Refugee follows three children in three different eras: Josef, a boy forced out of Germany in 1939; Isabel, a Cuban girl taking to the sea in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy whose home is destroyed in 2015. Each chapter ends on a cliffhanger, and the three stories turn out to be linked in ways most readers do not see coming. This quiz covers the whole book: the families, the dangers of each crossing, the choices the children are forced to make, and the real history Gratz built the stories on. A few questions look at the author and at how the book was received. It works as a comprehension check after finishing the novel, as revision before a class test, or as a book club warm-up. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Refugee, which Landau survives the Holocaust and later shelters Mahmoud's family in Berlin?
Ruthie
Ruthie is Josef's little sister, alive only because he volunteered to go to the camps in her place. In 2015 she tells Mahmoud her family died so that she could live to help his.
Q 02In Refugee, which Spanish word do Cuban officials keep repeating to the passengers on Josef's ship?
Mañana
Mañana means tomorrow, and the promise is never kept. Mahmoud's family hears the same empty promise from a smuggler in Turkey, day after day.
Q 03In Refugee, what prized possession does Isabel trade to a fisherman for gasoline to flee Cuba?
Her trumpet
Her trumpet buys two cans of gasoline for the neighbors' homemade boat. She had been playing it on Havana's streets for tourists' pesos.
Q 04In Refugee, how does Isabel's best friend Iván Castillo die on the crossing from Cuba to Florida?
A shark attack
A shark attack mangles his leg while he floats beside the boat. The passengers had been taking turns in the water to lighten the cracking hull.
Q 05In Refugee, who in Isabel's boat turns out to be Mariano Padron, the policeman from Josef's story?
Lito
Lito is Isabel's grandfather, and as a young officer in 1939 he had to tell Jewish passengers they could not land. His guilt over it drives his final choice off Miami.
Q 06In Refugee, which of Mahmoud's relatives is handed to strangers on a passing boat after his sinks?
Hana
Hana is Mahmoud's baby sister, and he begs the strangers to take her so she will not drown. The family searches every camp for her and has still not found her when the book ends.
Q 07In Refugee, Josef Landau's family flees Nazi Germany for Cuba aboard which real ocean liner?
MS St. Louis
MS St. Louis really sailed in 1939 with more than 900 Jewish passengers holding Cuban visas. Cuba, the United States and Canada all refused to let them land.
Q 08In Refugee, which Syrian city does Mahmoud's family flee after a missile wrecks their apartment?
Aleppo
Aleppo had been a shining, modern city before four years of civil war. That same day Mahmoud's father decides to sell the car in Turkey and head for Germany.
Q 09In Refugee, which song does Isabel play with a salsa rhythm for her family after settling in Miami?
The Star-Spangled Banner
The Star-Spangled Banner played Cuban-style is where she finally finds the beat she could never count. Her grandfather had warned she would lose it in America.
Q 10In Refugee, which Cuban leader goes on television to announce that anyone who wants to leave may go?
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro blames the Havana unrest on US agents, then drops the ban on leaving. Isabel's father had already spent a year in jail for trying to escape by sea.
Q 11In Refugee, Josef's father is dragged from the family's Berlin home during which event?
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, saw thousands of Jewish men sent to concentration camps. Josef hears nothing from his father for six months.
Q 12In Refugee, which Nazi concentration camp holds Josef's father for six months before his release?
Dachau
Dachau releases him only on condition that he leave Germany at once. He comes out so shaken that Josef barely recognizes him on the dock.
Q 13In Refugee, Josef's father is arrested for still working in which job the Nazis had closed to Jews?
A lawyer
A lawyer in the book, he kept working after an anti-Jewish rule banned it. Seven Brownshirts break into the Landau home in the middle of the night to take him.
Q 21In Refugee, which Cuban rhythm can Isabel never hear or count until after she reaches Miami?
Clave
Clave is the pulse her grandfather says runs under all Cuban music. He warns her she will never learn it in the United States, and she proves him wrong.
Q 22In Refugee, the collapse of which communist ally has left Isabel's Cuba starving by 1994?
Soviet Union
Soviet Union aid had kept the island's economy going. Once it stopped, hunger spread so far that Isabel's story opens with her feeding a starving cat.
Q 23In Refugee, where do Isabel and the others arrive by mistake, thinking they have reached Florida?
The Bahamas
The Bahamas will not let them stay, since anyone coming ashore would be deported to Cuba. Tourists toss them more food and water than they set out with.
Q 14In Refugee, from which German port city do Josef and the other passengers set sail for Havana?
Hamburg
Hamburg is where Josef meets his father again, thin and disheveled and sure the whole voyage is a trick. The rest of the family gets there by train from Berlin in a compartment set aside for Jews.
Q 15In Refugee, why does Josef's father refuse to attend his son's bar mitzvah aboard the ship to Cuba?
He fears a Nazi trap
He fears a Nazi trap, convinced the makeshift synagogue is bait. Six months in a concentration camp have left him too frightened to leave the cabin.
Q 16In Refugee, what does the rabbi ask the captain to take down before Josef's bar mitzvah at sea?
A portrait of Hitler
A portrait of Hitler hangs over the first-class social hall that serves as the synagogue. The German captain agrees at once, to the fury of one Nazi crewman.
Q 17In Refugee, how does Josef get his panicking father through the Cuban medical inspection?
He slaps and threatens him
He slaps and threatens him, claiming the doctor is a Nazi in disguise who will send him back to the camp. Josef realizes he has become the adult in the family.
Q 18In Refugee, what does Josef's father do in Havana harbor that gets him taken ashore alone?
Jumps overboard
He jumps overboard in a suicide attempt after Nazi crewmen ransack the family's cabin. A Cuban policeman dives in to save him, and he is kept in a Havana hospital.
Q 19In Refugee, which US president does the captain hope will admit the passengers Cuba has turned away?
Roosevelt
Roosevelt is the captain's last hope, but the United States refuses the ship as well. Reporters circle in small boats as the liner passes Miami and becomes world news.
Q 20In Refugee, what do Josef and a group of passengers attempt when they are ordered back to Europe?
Seize the ship's bridge
They seize the ship's bridge with pipes and candlesticks, hoping to run aground in America. The captain talks them down and promises not to return them to Germany.
Q 24In Refugee, where are Cubans caught at sea by the Americans held before being sent home?
Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay is a US naval base at the southern end of Cuba itself. Isabel's grandfather swears he will not be taken there as a patrol boat closes in.
Q 25In Refugee, the Castillos' homemade boat is powered by an engine taken from what kind of vehicle?
A motorcycle
A motorcycle engine drives the patched-together craft, which was never meant to carry nine people. It overheats and dies early in the crossing.
Q 26In Refugee, what kind of vessel nearly runs down Isabel's stalled boat in the Straits of Florida?
A huge tanker
A huge tanker bears down on them until the engine restarts at the last second. Its wake throws Señor Castillo into the sea, and Isabel dives in after him.
Q 27In Refugee, what does Isabel beg tourists to throw down for her feverish, heavily pregnant mother?
Aspirin
Aspirin is what the family lost when a wave swept their medicine into the sea. A woman among the tourists throws some down along with the food and water.
Q 28In Refugee, which belonging of Iván Castillo does Isabel keep and wear after his death at sea?
His baseball cap
His baseball cap is still lying in the boat after the others lower his body into the water. Her grandfather says a Catholic prayer first, though the faith had long been suppressed.
Q 29In Refugee, what does Isabel's grandfather sacrifice himself to do as the boat nears Miami Beach?
Distract the Coast Guard
He swims off to distract the Coast Guard, knowing he will be sent back to Cuba. The others paddle for the sand while the cutter turns toward him.
Q 30In Refugee, what is Mahmoud Bishara's rule for surviving the streets of his war-torn Syrian city?
Be invisible
Be invisible, hoodie low and eyes down, so no bully or gunman has a reason to notice him. By the end he decides that people only help refugees they can see.