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.
In WWII Germany was controlled as a fascist totalitarian state under the rule of Adolf Hitler. In 1933, the president of the Weimar Republic appointed Hitler as the chancellor of Germany. He continued gaining support from Germans by telling the Germans what they wanted to hear. He blamed problems on the Jews and promised to solve problems from the depression. Hitler gave the working class more jobs by destroying Jewish companies, the unemployed workers were given jobs of construction of building more works, and farmers were offered higher wages for crops. As chancellor, he controlled the media and censored comments against the war. As a fascist state, extreme nationalism was displayed and gained support through propaganda against Jews. Hitler wanted a larger military for territorial expansion. Eight countries were conquered by him: Poland, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the ...
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...s an artist but when he wasn’t accepted into art school he started to hate all art that wasn’t landscape paintings. He ordered an art burning in March 1939 setting over a thousand of paintings on fire. Organizations collected Jewish books and had a mass book burning, described on pages 108-113 in The Book Thief.
The author of The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, grew up in Australia with a German mother and an Australian father. Both of his parents experienced the effects during and after World War II and told him stories of the events during that time. Zusak’s mother grew up in Munich, Germany and told him of her experiences in Nazi Germany. Because his mother is a primary source of events that went on, he has insight on the social aspects of the war such as people’s reactions to the Nazis and the people’s thoughts of everything going on around them during World War II.
In the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak the narrator is Death, who shows itself as sympathetic and sensitive towards the suffering of the world and the cruel human nature, through its eyes, we can get to know the heartbreaking story of Liesel Meminger an ordinary, but very lucky nine-year old German girl; living in the midst of World War II in Germany. In this book the author provides a different insight and observation about humanity during this time period from a German view and not an Allied perspective, as we are used to.
In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel Meminger, an orphaned little girl living in Nazi Germany, evolves partly through her numerous literary thefts. At her younger brother’s gravesite, she steals her first book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook, which teaches her not only the method to physically bury her brother, but also lets her emotionally bury him and move on. The theft of her next book, The Shoulder Shrug, from a book burning marks the start of Liesel’s awareness and resistance to the Nazi regime. As a story with a Jewish protagonist “who [is] tired of letting life pass him by – what he refer[s] to as the shrugging of the shoulders to the problems and pleasures of a person’s time on earth,” this novel prepares her both for resisting the
The chaos and destruction that the Nazi’s are causing are not changing the lives of only Jews, but also the lives of citizens in other countries. Between Night by Elie Wiesel and The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, comradeship, faith, strength, and people of visions are crucial to the survival of principle characters. Ironically, in both stories there is a foreseen future, that both seemed to be ignored.
The Book Thief and Nazi Germany The heavily proclaimed novel “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak is a great story that can help you understand what living in Nazi Germany was like. Throughout the story, the main character, Liesel goes through many hardships to cope with a new life in a new town and to come to the recognition of what the Nazi party is. Liesel was given up for adoption after her mother gave her away to a new family, who seemed harsh at first, but ended up being the people who taught her all the things she needed to know. Life with the new family didn’t start off good, but the came to love them and her new friend, Rudy.
In Night, Author Elie Wiesel describes his experience in Nazi Hungary and in concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Buchenwald to bring awareness about the horrors of the Holocaust and warn the people about any future atrocities. Furthermore, in The Book Thief, the main character, Liesel Meminger, describes her experience with stealing books and how it helped her survive and stay courageous during the Nazi regime. Lastly, in The Dairy of a Young Girl, Anne Frank writes a series of Dairy journal entries that describe her horrendous experiences with the Jewish persecution in the Netherlands. Additionally, he used posters to portray his hate against the Jim Crow laws.
Society teaches that everyone is equal; however, between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi party deemed Jews inferior. Some people agreed with the party, other silently rebelled. Either way, in 12 years around 6 million Jews were systematically murdered. One person who silently rebelled was Hans Huberman. In “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak, Hans Huberman’s compassionate actions and beliefs are influenced by the Nazi party’s treatment of Jews.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a young German girl of about ten years of age, who is fostered by the Hubermanns’, in a small town in Germany between 1939 and 1943. In the prologue, the reader is informed that ‘It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery’. It is however, much more. Despite the immense sadness and heartache of the overarching context, Zusak employs powerful techniques including; Death’s distinctive narrative voice, the symbolism of words and the inclusion of graphic stories to encourage the reader to feel enlivened throughout the story.
This accumulation of events which are skewed by common cultural perspectives is counteracted by the creative choice of narrator. The Book Thief, a narrative detailing Liesel, a young girl's journey of life during World War II employs this frequently. This form of biased writing within the novel byMarkus Zusak has constructed his expression of character and events to be distanced from our general connotations of the events occurring and preconceived ideas of the people of NAZI Germany. Few scenes occur outside of the context of the Hubberman's or Himmel street and no time goes by where the scene is not overlooked by the narration of Death.
Hitler’s rise to power before World War II was due to his anger at Germany’s defeat in World War I and the punishment Germany received from Britain and France. He also directed his anger at Jews and communists he believed contributed to that defeat. He blamed them for the loss of World War I, which he thought was a Jewish conspiracy (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 1). He also believed that the Treaty of Versailles was a Jewish conspiracy designed to take down the country of Germany (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 1) as well as the hyperinflation of 1923, which he believed to be an international conspiracy by the Jewish people (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany (The History Place: Holocaust Timeline pg. 1). This was the rise to power that he needed to carry out his campaign of evil against the Jewish people. After his rise to power, Hitler branded the Jews as
The Nazi Party, controlled by Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. In 1933, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi government began to take over. Hitler became a very influential speaker and attracted new members to his party by blaming Jews for Germany’s problems and developed a concept of a “master race.” The Nazis believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jewish people were a threat to the German racial community and also targeted other groups because of their “perceived racial inferiority” such as Gypsies, disabled persons, Polish people and Russians as well as many others. In 1938, Jewish people were banned from public places in Germany and many were sent to concentration camps where they were either murdered or forced to work.
Many would argue that the most impactful part of the world’s history would be the Holocaust. This event killed millions of people and destroyed an innumerable amount of lives. Therefore, when retelling a story about the Holocaust, the author must make it impactful. For instance, Markus Zusak certainly makes a statement with his book, The Book Thief.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
Along with the reign of Hitler, Peter VanDaan a 16 year old Jewish boy was forced into hiding with his family and the Franks. With what Hitler, he was able to make Jews hate what they were supposed to love, The Star of David. In the story Anne Frank, it states on page 110, paragraph 96 “He starts to rip off The Star of David” This shows that Hitler used the star of David to brand the Jews. It was a sign of hope to look up to and Hitler took it away. Hitler did this to
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.
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.