Summary Of The Book Thief By Markus Zusak

The Book Thief (2013), directed by Brian Percival, is about a young old girl living in Nazi Germany (between 1939 and 1943) in the fictional town of Molching, Germany. Death narrates the story of the main protagonist, Liesel Meminger, beginning when she is nine years old and suffering from the death of her brother and separation from her mother. Liesel then goes to live with Hans and Rosa Hubermann (played by Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson). When Liesel arrives, she is illiterate and is made fun of in school by the other children. Hans, a painter and accordion player, teaches her how to read, using the book Liesel took from her brother's burial: The Grave Digger's Handbook. Over the course of the movie, Liesel develops a love for reading and decides to steal books because of the economical hardships associated with World War II. Liesel's foster parents also decide to help a young Jewish man named Max, whose father fought with Hans as in World War One as German soldiers. The Book Thief illustrates a different perspective in regards to the Nazi Regimen and its effects on the German people, specifically children.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a story set in Germany during World War 2. This novel follows the life of Liesel Meminger, a girl who develops greatly. With Death as the all knowing narrator of the story, the reader has the ability to see various perspectives. It tells the story of oppression, portrays the power of words, and shows the human ability for kindness or cruelty. I chose to do option four, in which I have chosen important sections from the novel.

Has it ever dawned upon you how a twelve year old boy might have experienced the Holocaust? In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, Mr. Wiesel told his story, leaving us with an astonishing and vehement view to what it was like to be sent to a concentration camp at the young age of twelve. To enhance the powerful effect of the book, a multitude of motifs were utilized, although one was undeniably conspicuous: The dehumanization of the Jews. The book was a full chronicle of one young man’s experience of the Holocaust, which included multifarious occurrences of the horrors Jewish prisoners were put through, ultimately removing the essence of their humanity. Symbolism was incorporated into this motif, in which Mr. Wiesel showed how one’s eyes not

“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn 't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.” (Zusak 550) Markus Zusak wrote “The Book Thief” which is a historical fiction novel about a young girl named Liesel Meminger growing up in Germany during World War II. Zusak has German-Austrian parents who were children during World War II. His perspective helps us to be more empathetic towards Germans in the book because he explains to us: German children didn’t understand what Hitler was doing, not all Germans hated Jews, and Germans cared about each other deeply and helped each other out.

of a young boy going through the holocaust with his dying father and fighting the struggle to keep his faith.

Many came and watched as the train flew by. The townspeople looked at them like one would an exotic animal. They began to throw bread into the wagon, waiting for the amusement that would follow. “Meir. Meir, my boy! Don’t you recognize me? I’m your father…you’re hurting me…you’re killing father! I’ve got some bread…for you too…for you too….” (101). Life was so dreadful for them under Nazi control that a son would kill his father for a small crust of bread. Their time in the camp devolved them into primitive people with animal-like characteristics who cared only for their own survival. The Nazis treatment of the Jews brought out their instinct for survival like wild animals who care for no one but

The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden.

The concentration camps of the Holocaust were home to countless injustices to humanity. Not only were the prisoners starved to the brink of death, but they were also treated as animals, disciplined through beatings nearly every day. Most would not expect an ill-prepared young boy to survive such conditions. Nevertheless, in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Wiesel defies the odds and survives to tell the story. Wiesel considers this survival merely luck, yet luck was not the only factor to come into play: his father had an even greater impact. Prior to their arrival at Auschwitz, Wiesel lacked a close relationship with his rather detached father; however, when faced by grueling concentration camp life, the bond between Wiesel and his father ultimately enables Wiesel’s survival.

He was only a teenager when he and his family were forced out of their homes and into the barbarous concentration camps. He told stories of the things he experienced and witnessed; babies being shot, people being thrown into incinerators, children being separated from their families, and people who were ready to kill over a single morsel of bread. “Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children.

Half the inmates died due to starvation and lack of nutrition. They were only given a very small ration of soup and a piece of bread. As he was trying to survive in the concentration camps; his greatest fear was not to lose his father through his harsh times and challenges while in the camp.

Elie and his sick dad were on a train together. They were transported in overcrowded cattle cars, lasting long journeys from concentration camp to concentration camp. In the overcrowded cattle were selfish and violent hungry people ready to fight to the death for little portions of food, and Elie, a young boy having to care for his sick father, faces having to supply for his ill father despite Elie himself being hungry and other Jews telling Elie, you have to fight for

Death is a very well-known figure that is feared by many in all countries. He is suspected of being cruel, disturbing and all synonyms of horrifying. Death is inevitable and that is the most fearing aspect of his persona. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Death is made to seem or resemble humans. Effectively using the narration role, Death introduces a unique description and definition of colors in which he uses as a tool to effectively engage the readers to the events occurring throughout the book. He also demonstrates him personal and different experiences as well, mostly about soul gathering and the implications of WWII that have affected him. On the contrary to Death’s dead, appalling and scary nature that many interpret him to be

Many Jews were beaten frequently during their imprisonment. And not only were “the Kapos… beating us (them)” (Wiesel 36), Wiesel states that his father was called an “’old good for-nothing’" (Wiesel 55) and “’old loafer’” (Wiesel 55). The Jews, were starved, tortured, and killed. This treatment towards the Jews was lower than treatment to dogs in the concentration camps. While many lives weren’t equal in importance, the Jew’s lives were unjustifiably held to the most trivial level. This shows, that while Wiesel and his father found each other’s existence a necessity, Nazis treated them as inconsequential

Profoundly this man states how growing up he was told that the jews were dirty, diseitful and disorganized and he believed it to be true. However when he got to the camp which was chaotic, dirty and seemingl disorganized he realized that it was not the jews that were this way. The conditions of the camps were not accidentle but the filth was part of the system to strip aay ones dignity and de-huamnize that individual making it easier for the soldiers to

“When a Jew shows up at your place of residence in the early hours of the morning, in the very birthplace of Nazismn, you’re likely to experience extreme levels of Discomfort, Anxiety, Disbelief and Paranoia.”, The propaganda of Hitler was the most important aspect in the The Book Thief because it often set the mood that I was feeling and that feeling was sick and cringing while reading the Novel. Before the war, The Nazi’s passed laws to effectively get rid of the Jews Human Rights and basically stripping and restricting them from being “human”. Max, The “Jewish Fist Fighter”, was a victim of the Propaganda and his presence served and reminded me the vast superiority that the German’s had against the Jews during the Holocaust.This made me think so negatively on the Propaganda that was set against the Jews and completely disagreeing with the way Hitler was seeing things because of the fact that for Max to be, “lucky”, lucky meant that his home was the Hubermann’s freezing basement