In The Book Thief, set in Nazi Germany, two issues of injustice are antisemitism and discrimination due to political beliefs. To start with antisemitism, during the Second World War, Hitler wanted to make the Germans a superior race and he felt the Jews should be killed because of their religious views. Max Vandenburg, a Jew, has been hiding almost all of his adult life from the Nazis. Max makes his way across Germany to Molching where Hans and Rosa Hubermann take him into hiding. If Max were to be discovered by anyone outside of the household, the Hubermanns and Max would most likely be killed because Hitler had 90% of the German population convinced Jews were the enemy.
While there is considerable debate about the specifics of real-world power relations, defining the concept has proven to be difficult as well. Some use Marxist analyses when framing relationships, others take a post-modern approach. While there are broad similarities between these different definitions in practice, no abstract descriptions are accepted by a majority of sociologists.
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That injustice is the mistreatment of Jewish people. The Book Thief provides the reader with the point of view of a citizen from Nazi Germany. The citizen’s name is Liesel. Throughout the story, Liesel sees what the Germans do to the Jewish; they vandalize their stores, abuse them and essentially treat them like trash. The sad part about the mistreatment is that some people don’t want to take part in it. The citizens of Germany must conform to what the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, wants or they’ll be treated just like the Jews. At that time, Germany was controlled by pure
...the citizens of Germany were looking for a quick solution to their problems, and would not care about right or wrong; they just want peace. Their believing of anti-Semitism fed onto them by the Nazi government shows that they are not questioning the lies and are therefore being unintelligent of the truth and of the world around them.
Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief (2005), and Steven Spielberg, director of Schindler’s List (1993), both use their works to portray the theme of racism in Nazi-era Germany. Racism today affects millions of people daily, with 4.6 million people being racial discrimination in Australia alone. However, in Nazi-era Germany, Jewish people were discrimination because they weren’t part of the ‘master race’, causing millions to suffer and be killed. To explore this theme, the setting, characters, conflicts and symbols in both The Book Thief and Schindler’s List will be analysed and compared.
Human nature has many elements that reveal the growth and personality of a person. In Markus Zusak’s “The Book Thief”, the author successfully portrays various aspects of human nature through Hans’ conflicts that originate from the tough reality that he lives in. Elements of human nature can be seen as a result of Hans’ constant struggles with guilt, kindness, and love.
The Holocaust is marked as one of the most horrifying events of the 20th century.The person who was responsible for the Holocaust was Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party. The question is, how, and why was Hitler able to do this? The actual truth behind all this is that, Hitler could make the world his, just by using words. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, it tells a story about a young girl growing up when Nazi Germany was invincible. The author explores some very meaningful, yet, controversial themes for the most part of the novel. Out of all themes, he believes that words hold a remarkable power. He explores how words manipulate, divide, and connect people.
During the Holocaust, around six million Jews were murdered due to Hitler’s plan to rid Germany of “heterogeneous people” in Germany, as stated in the novel, Life and Death in the Third Reich by Peter Fritzsche. Shortly following a period of suffering, Hitler began leading Germany in 1930 to start the period of his rule, the Third Reich. Over time, his power and support from the country increased until he had full control over his people. Starting from saying “Heil Hitler!” the people of the German empire were cleverly forced into following Hitler through terror and threat. He had a group of leaders, the SS, who were Nazis that willingly took any task given, including the mass murder of millions of Jews due to his belief that they were enemies to Germany. German citizens were talked into participating or believing in the most extreme of things, like violent pogroms, deportations, attacks, and executions. Through the novel’s perspicacity of the Third Reich, readers can see how Hitler’s reign was a controversial time period summed up by courage, extremity, and most important of all, loyalty.
After Germany lost World War I, it was in a national state of humiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ would be dominant in a cultural sense. His steps to achieving his goal came in the form of the Holocaust. The most well known victims of the Holocaust were of course, the Jews. However, approximately 11 million people were killed in the holocaust, and of those, there were only 6 million Jews killed. The other 5 million people were the Gypsies, Pols, Political Dissidents, Handicapped, Jehovah’s witnesses, Homosexuals and even those of African-German descent. Those who were believed to be enemies of the state were sent to camps where they were worked or starved to death.
German citizens had to endure a challenging lifestyle, presented by Adolf Hitler, of fascism, the holocaust, Jewish laws and propaganda during World War II. From 1939-1942, Nazi Germany affected the lives of Jews, Gypsies, Slavic people, and other groups living in Germany by getting rid of the undesirables, known as the Holocaust. Only Germans with the look of blond hair and blue eyes were even considered to live, only if he or she had no defects or disabilities, anyone else was sent to and killed in concentration camps. The Book Thief takes place in a town near Munich, Germany during this time of the holocaust. The novel focuses on the lives of the people and how they cope and deal with the immediate effects of WWII. It emphasizes the danger of hiding a Jew in a family’s basement, and how they are constantly paranoid of being caught.
...er of dividing and attacking his enemies one by one. He would win over people with tempting promises. In conclusion Racism,National pride and peer pressure played a major role in the German peoples participation in or indifference’s towards the state-sponsored genocide and murders in Germany.
“While imprisoned, Hitler wrote, “My Struggle,” where he foretold the war that would lead to the death of many Jews.” (The Holocaust) The Jews were used as scapegoats by the Germans. They were treated terribly and lived in very poor conditions. Many of the Jewish children were put into homes, therefore having better chances of hiding.
The Marxist theory explains how in many of the texts that are written and read by the human race all have evidence of a power struggle and inequalities. In Arthur millers the Crucible it is very evident that there is a struggle between all the classes that Karl Marx points out are there. The power dynamics and economic inequalities among the different groups found in Miller's play is evident in the way that everyone has a certain role and that everyone has different problems they are worried about. In the Karl Marx's theory, he usually points out the three roles that everyone plays in a piece of literature the upper class, bourgeois, and the proletarians. The upper class are those who do not have to worry about money food and other provisions
If you were a German citizen during World War II, do you think you would be a Nazi? Most people would say no even though, in actuality, most people would be. It is because people need to succumb to societal expectations to survive in a society such as that of Germany during WWII and in the book, The Book Thief, this theme of individual versus society is explored with people complying and fighting social expectations. Sometimes people side with the Nazi Party out of fear of being targeted and other times fight against Nazi Party because of love for their family and fellow man with usually terrible consequences. In The Book Thief, the theme of the individual versus society is shown many times with characters conforming and defying social expectations.
When a government takes extremes that they see as pursuing national interest, mass genocide as well as segregation can occur. THroughout the 1930s while germany was under control of adolf hitler, a constant search of a “pure Germany” had taken over the minds of many who wanted to rid the filth they saw throughout the streets and of the german people. Germany's new leader had had begun to sway the people by picking on their sensitivities. He had used the common despair of his people after the loss of World War 1 and strated to single out and blame those who he saw as the true cause of their great nation's downfall. Entire races and religions of people were seen as inferior since they were assigned responsibility for the fault instead of moving
Therefore, the German people were pushed to move on and embrace democracy, but they still had a choice to make. They had to decide if they were willing to leave their old lives and beliefs behind, and embrace the new ideas that were being imposed upon
You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels, and will continue to quicken other minds’” (Helen Keller). From analytical examination of these statements, one can infer that even though the Nazis believe that their views are more virtuous and respectable, others may not think so and have the freedom to contradict these claims. This also dictates that when modern societies have the right to contradict views that seeme to be respectable, it allows the concept of good vs. evil and justice vs. injustice to develop in the government as well as the citizens. Otherwise, the line between justice and injustice is blurred, making the
This is what had made Hitler one of the greatest public speakers that the world had ever seen from his time and in history. "The German people and it 's soldiers work and fight today not for themselves and their own age, but also for many generations to come. A historical task of unique dimensions has been entrusted to us by the Creator that we are now obliged to carry out." Hitler, the Fuhrer of Germany, was a very talented spokesman in ways that leaders today could not even begin to compare with. He was charismatic and bold, making it easier for him to win over the minds of many Germans with these two traits. He believed that during his rise to power, he and the people of Germany had been given a duty by God to purify the nation of its imperfect races and weaker people so as to make the mother country strong again for future generations. "Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live." In many ways, Hitler felt he was justified in what he was doing, and in some