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All about the book thief
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The book thief analys
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It’s the early 1940s in a small town in Germany. On a normal day, adults would be working and children would be in school. But today, everyone is out on the sidewalks, silent. A large group of raggedy, lethargic, stick-thin people are walking, no trudging on the streets. One elderly man stands out from the crowd, he is especially frail. He stumbles, his legs too weak to hold his body up. People just watch on(Zusak 393*). In current times, this situation would’ve never happened, but during the Holocaust, this was acceptable, if the person was a Jew. The scene described in the beginning was one of the events in The Book Thief, a novel where an orphaned German girl, Liesel and her foster family try to scrape by during hard times. Throughout the
In The Book Thief, author Markus Zusak communicates an over-arching topic. This topic is; all objects convey dark tones. The idea is transmitted into the writing subtly throughout the excerpt, as well as the story.
World War II was a grave event in the twentieth century that affected millions. Two main concepts World War II is remembered for are the concentration camps and the marches. These marches and camps were deadly to many yet powerful to others. However, to most citizens near camps or marches, they were insignificant and often ignored. In The Book Thief, author Markus Zusak introduces marches and camps similar to Dachau to demonstrate how citizens of nearby communities were oblivious to the suffering in those camps during the Holocaust.
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal is a memoir about his time as a Jewish child in multiple ghettos and death camps in and around Germany during World War II. The author shares about his reunions with family and acquaintances from the war in the years between then and now. Buergenthal wished to share his Holocaust story for a number of reasons: to prevent himself from just being another number, to contribute to history, to show the power and necessity of forgiveness, the will to not give up, and to question how people change in war allowing them to do unspeakable things. The memoir is not a cry for private attention, but a call to break the cycle of hatred and violence to end mass crimes.
Towards friends and neighbours, Hans aids all of those that need it. After Mr. Kleinmann’s clothing store was vandalized, Death, the narrator, observed,“In sloppy lettering, the words JEWISH FILTH were spilling over at their edges.[...]Hans moved closer and stuck his head inside. “Do you need some help?” Mr. Kleinmann looked up.[...] “No, Hans. Please. Go away.” Hans had painted Joel Kleinmann’s house the previous year. He remembered his three children. He could see their faces but couldn’t recall their names. “I will come tomorrow,” he said, “and repaint your door”(181). Despite not knowing them very well, Hans still offers help towards those who have nothing, even if it may affect his own financial situation. As women who had nothing would come up to Hans and ask him to paint their blinds black, he said, ““Frau Hallah, I’m sorry, I have no black paint left,” he would say, but a little farther down the road, he would always break. There was tall man and long street. “Tomorrow,” he’d promise, “first thing,” and when the next morning dawned, there he was, painting those blinds for nothing, or for a cookie or a warm cup of tea”(354). Even though it was against the values of WWII Germany’s society, Hans still felt the need to help anyone, even if they were Jewish. “Papa reached into his paint cart and pulled something out. [...] The Jew stood before him, expecting another handful of
In the novel The Book Thief, setting and point of view affect the theme and book a lot. The point of view of this novel is third person omniscient and a little bit of second and first person when the narrator talks about himself or to the reader. The setting of the story is Nazi Germany and it is based on a young girl named Liesel Meminger and what her life was like during this time. Her story is told by the narrator, death. Mark Zusak, the author, uses setting and point of view to express the theme of the novel because there was so much death happening, Liesel encountered him so many times, causing him to be able to tell her story; without this setting and the narrator, the theme story would have been different.
Grenville, John A.S. “Neglected Holocaust Victims: the Mischlinge, the Judischversippte, and the Gypsies.” The Holocaust and History. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998. 315-326.
Death states that, “I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both” (Zusak 491). This book shows us human doing things that weren’t even imaginable before this point. Many people give into ideas that were lies. But, we also watch a few people go out of their way and sacrifice everything for a man they barely even know. They do everything they can to keep him safe and alive. They work harder, the get another job, and they even steal. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, death examines the ugliness and the beauty of humans.
In The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, beauty and brutality is seen in many of the characters. Rudy, Liesel, and Rosa display examples of beauty and brutality often without realizing what exactly they are doing, because it is a part of their human nature. Zusak not only uses his characters, but also the setting of the novel in Nazi Germany to allude to his theme of the beauty and brutality of human nature. The time in which the novel is set, during World War II, displays great examples of beauty and brutality, such as the mistreatment of the Jews. As a result of this time period, the characters have to go through troubling times, which reveals their beautiful and brutal nature in certain circumstances. Zusak uses his characters and their experiences to demonstrate the theme of the beauty and brutality of human nature in the novel.
Elie Wiesel exhibits several tools of survival during his life of becoming a victim of the Holocaust. Elie explains that he is fascinated with the concept of being dead and how it would take away all the pains that he must endure while running through the snow, such as being hungry, cold, and dealing with a swollen throbbing foot.
1st Part Hall, Allan Incredible Stories of young Jews who hid in the heart of Nazi Berlin The Daily Record 23 March 2013 www.dailyrecord.co.uk Rolf
Everyday one may see dozens of small acts of compassion. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a compelling story set in Germany during the Second World War; a difficult time for compassion. The story follows a foster family living in Molching, Germany and their acts, big and small, against the Nazi regime. In The Book Thief, Hans Hubermann exemplifies the inherent compassion of humans. This can be seen through Hans’ act of offering to black out the windows of families for little or no payment, giving bread to a starving jew, and teaching Liesel how to read. All acts indicating his dedication to aid those stricken by misfortune.
The dark side of human nature has always been very apparent in our lives. Just turn on the news or open a history textbook. One of the darkest stains of human history, the Holocaust, illustrates a particular lack of humanity. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak explores the unpredicted kindness human nature through a young German girl who discovers the power of words.
With minimal clothing, scraps for food, and being treated as pests, the Jews of Europe were being executed by the thousands during World War II. They were being persecuted simply for being a Jew. Running and hiding didn’t do much good. They were sought out only to be taken to a camp filled to the brim with both children and adults alike. Here they would be over-worked, underfed, and ultimately killed. They Holocaust caused more suffering that even the strongest man could endure physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The developmental stage of a young child’s life is very crucial and can be impacted by the media. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel Meminger is a young girl living in a very important part of Germany’s history, the Second World War. Liesel’s childhood unfolds and develops against the backdrop of a time when words, books specifically were used for power and control. Liesel is someone who has a love for reading and, as such, books become very important to her, not only for her education but for her rebellion and discovering her true identity. Throughout the novel, books become a crucial symbol used to convey the desires and discovery of identity for the main character as her childish ignorance changes to her mature adulthood.
Ghettos start to take shape throughout German captive territories. Mass killings are perfectly and vividly described in the letters and communications within the Third Reich through communication and the war diaries of men like Lt. Col. Helmuth Groscurth about the massacres of polish citizens in October of 1939; “The woman had to climb into this grave and took her youngest child in her arms…” A culture of inhumanity was being created as certain groups were being targeted and annihilated from institutions for the handicapped and mentally disabled by the spring of 1940. Based on the calculations offered by the Germans the average daily cost for an institutionalized person in 1940 was RM 0.56. The Germans presented the information to the Aryan population as a positive money saving endeavor and affirmative reasoning to justify and execute the handicapped or disabled population institutionalized as wards of the state.