Joshua Orefice (Giorgio Cantarini)’s Timeline and Summary
- Joshua spends the day at work with his father. When Guido's taken to the Prefect's house, Joshua watches the store.
- His estranged grandmother pretends to be a customer, and she asks him to deliver a letter to his mother. Joshua's one smart cookie, though, and he figures out who she is.
- As his family prepares for the party, Joshua refuses to take a bath because, you know, baths are the worst.
- On the day of the party, Joshua, Guido, and Uncle Eliseo are taken away and transported to a concentration camp along with Dora, who requested to stay with her family.
- At the camp, Guido convinces Joshua that their horrible circumstances are part of an elaborate, difficult game. If they earn 1,000 points, they win a tank. Joshua's excited for his very own tank, probably because he won't have to foot the gas bill.
- One day, Joshua runs into the factory. The other children were taken to the showers, and Joshua doesn't want to take a bath.
- Later, Guido learns that the showers are actually gas chambers, and he changes the game to have Joshua hide in the room all day.
- Guido takes Joshua to see German children playing hide-and-seek in the camp, but a Nazi guard notices Joshua. Thinking he's one of the children, she herds him into the dining room with the others.
- Joshua enjoys the best meal he's had for ages. He accidently says, "Thank you" in Italian at one point, but Guido covers for him by pretending that he's been teaching all the children to speak Italian.
- One night, the Nazis begin to erase the evidence of the concentration camp as the Allied forces are about to surround the camp.
- Guido has Joshua hide in a box, um, thing. He has Joshua promise to not leave until everyone's gone. Everyone.
- Later, Joshua sees Guido walk doing a silly goose step march. Joshua laughs, not realizing his father is being marched to his death, protected to his father's last moments.
- The next morning, Joshua emerges from the box into an empty camp.
- An American tank rolls into view, and the soldier inside offers the kid a ride.
- Joshua's stoked because he thinks he won the tank. Natch.
- The American soldiers come across the camp survivors. Joshua sees his mother in the crowd.
- The two embrace and Joshua exclaims that they won the game.