The Zookeepers Wife Literary Analysis

Throughout the years, the Holocaust has been depicted in various ways. There have been hundreds of books written to share the data of lives lost as well as the in depth writing of historical books. There are movies, autobiographies that have been written about victims and survivors, and novels that have been published about the events that took place during this horrific time in history. There are also museums and monuments found all over the world dedicated to depicting the events of the Holocaust that took place. In the non-fiction novel, The Zookeeper’s Wife, the beginnings of the Holocaust are shown. In the The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas, the events of the Holocaust are portrayed through the eyes of children rather in a factual study.

During this time everyone was extremely unequal, minority groups were labeled as different than others and were viewed as though they did not deserve life. People were labeled unequal also because of the way they looked, acted, or their accent during this horrific time. The inequality during this time lead to the development of Nuremburg race laws. These laws were developed mainly against Jewish individuals prohibiting them from gaining citizenship. These laws also were put in place to make it illegal for a Jewish individual to marry or have sexual relations with anyone of a German decent. These laws were in place to prevent the spread of Jews, and discriminated heavily against anyone of the Jewish religion. For example, if an individual was to fall in love with someone of the Jewish religion both parties would be punished and could potentially lose their lives for failing to follow the Nuremburg laws. Another example from the novel includes the young character Shmuel, whom is a young boy born into the Jewish religion by family and unfortunately becomes placed in the Auschwitz concentration camp against his will. The inequality of this time spread from adults to children who were unable to grasp the concepts of what was happening during this

The Holocaust involved the building of concentration camps and the persecution of the majority of minority groups during this time. The groups affected by this horrific event in time include anyone who followed the Jewish religion, homosexual or any individual that appears to be different or against Hitler’s opinion of a master race. Throughout this time there was a vast amount of violence and fear that was taking place across Germany and other parts of the world. The violence that occurred ranged from the mass killings of minority groups to punishments and tortures. “…only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.” (Boyne214). This quotation from the fictional novel shows how horrific and difficult the circumstances of the Holocaust were. This quote also represents the rest of the world’s point of view on the situation at hand. Throughout the events of the Holocaust the rest of the world was left wondering what the people affected by this traumatic event went through and experienced. The world was also left wondering what went through the minds of every German Nazi soldier whom followed Hitler’s commands to kill others. While certain