Guilt In The Book Thief

To begin, the inner struggle of guilt is shown in many characters in The Book Thief. Max Vandenburg is the Jewish man that Liesel’s foster parents agreed to hide in their basement to escape the Nazis. Max says to Rosa and Hans Hubermann about hiding in their basement, “You will not hear from me. I will not make a sound” (Max, 207). It writes that to live, “The price was guilt and shame” (Zusak, 208). The Hubermanns are in considerable danger due to hiding Max from the Nazis. In order to hide himself from the persecution of the Nazis in that time, Max must risk those around him and this is a source of immense guilt for him to struggle with. Another character to struggle with guilt is Hans Hubermann, Liesel’s foster father. Ironically, Hans experiences significant guilt over an action that could be considered virtuous.

When Jews are marched through the town on the way to a labour camp, Hans tries to give one of them a piece of bread.

A soldier then whips them as punishment. This leads to panic over the expectancy of a Nazi soldier to come and look for “any evidence of Jew loving or treason.” (Zusak 400). Because of this, Max flees the house. Later, when no soldiers come, they realize, “it appeared that Max had left for no reason at all” (Zusak 400). Hans struggles with guilt because even though he tried to do something kind to help a starving Jewish man, it is because of this that it is his own fault for Max leaving unnecessarily. A final example of a character experiencing guilt is Michael Holtzapfel, a soldier injured in battle. He grapples with the guilt of surviving, and wanting to survive, when his brother dies from a battle injury. Michael’s mother, upon hearing that one of her sons is dead, is grief stricken, and this shows when she refused to go to the bomb shelter to safety during an air raid. Michael says, “how can she sit there ready to die while I still want to live? I shouldn’t want to, but I do” (Zusak

497). Michael feels guilt over wanting to live after the death of his brother, as if him wanting to survive is selfish when so many around him had died. “He killed himself for wanting to live”(Zusak 503). Michael felt guilty for wanting to live because his mother’s grief made her want to die, and he felt as if he did not feel enough grief, because he still wanted to keep on living. Guilt in The Book Thief emerges in many character in many different instances, and is a common theme throughout the novel.