Download Introduction to The Book Thief

Introduction to The Book Thief
ENG 2D
Novel Study
A Quick Overview
• A story set in Germany during WWII
• Captures the life of a normal young girl growing up
during such a time
• Has won numerous awards and was on the New
York Times Best Seller list for over 190 weeks!
• Written by Australian author Markus Zusak
Important Characters
Death: A supernatural being
who serves as the narrator.
He is very busy carrying away
the souls of mankind after they
have died and sees the world
through colour. It is apparent
that he has done this job for
millennia and as he watches
over Liesel we get a sense of
his struggle to understand
mankind’s capacity for good
and evil.
Liesel Meminger:
– Is the book thief
– Forced to live with foster parents in Munich Germany
at the onset of WWII
– When she learns to read she begins stealing books
whenever possible.
Max Vandenburg:
– A 23 year-old Jew
– Father served with Liesel’s foster-father
during WWI.
– Hides in their basement and develops a
friendship with Liesel
Hans Hubermann: Liesel’s foster
father who is a tall, gentle man with
compassion and bravery that Liesel
admires. It is Hans who teaches
Liesel to read and soothes her from
her endless nightmares.
Rosa Hubermann: A stern woman
who has a kind heart but does not
show it as often or as softly as her
husband.
Rudy Steiner: An amusing character
the same age as Liesel who
regularly requests kisses from
Liesel. He becomes Liesel’s
partner in crime.
Setting
•In 1923, Hitler and his
supporters were
concentrated in Munich
•It became a Nazi stronghold
when Hitler became dictator
in 1933
Adolf Hitler in Munich Germany, Nov. 1933
• A group of Munich University
students formed a resistance
movement in 1942 – majority
were caught and executed
• The city was heavily damaged
by allied bombing during World
War II—the city was hit by 71 air
raids over a period of six years.
Dachau
First concentration camp,
Dachau, was 16 km north-west
of Munich
April, 1945 the US assaulted the
outskirts of Munich, liberating Dachau
concentration camp in the process
Was a concentration camp for 12
years and recorded the intake of
206,206 prisoners. Approximately
32,000 prisoners were liberated in
1945
Historical Context
Adolf Hitler
• Was born in 1889, dreamed of being an
artist and left school to pursue this dream
• At 18, went to Vienna to study art but was
not accepted to Vienna Academy of Fine
Arts
• Was unemployed for the next 5 years
• His time in Vienna he became influenced
by Karl Laager – Mayor of Vienna
• Karl was anti-Semitic, meaning to have hatred or
hostility towards Jews
• Hitler’s hatred for Communists and Jews began to
develop, he moved to Munich and enlisted in the
Germany army
• He served as a messenger in the army, was
honoured with Iron Cross twice for his bravery
•Was devastated by German defeat and
returned home blaming the Jews and
Communists
•After the war he became involved in politics
and discovered that he was a gifted public
speaker
Political Career
• In 1920 he joined the
National Socialist German
Worker’s Party (Nazis)
• In 1923 tried to take over
the government in a revolt
in Munich – it failed and he
was sent to jail but gained
him nationwide attention
•While in jail he wrote Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”)
and set out his belief that the German, or Aryan,
race was superior to all, especially the Jews
Belief of Aryan Race
• Hitler identified Jews as a race,
not as a religious group
• He claimed that the Aryan race
had to be kept pure and become
superior to the rest of the world
• To be kept pure, he claimed that
the superior race need room to
live…alone
• The book was dismissed, few
recognized the threat the book
posed to Jews and all of Europe
• No one thought it possible for him
to carry out such ideas…but the
conditions in Germany proved
otherwise
Depression
The German people had been
humiliated by the surrender of
WWI. The Treaty of Versailles
was a peace treaty signed at the
end of WWI and required
Germany to:
– Accept responsibility for the war
– Disarm
– Renounce power over substantial
territory
– Pay damages equivalent to $442
Billion (Final payments were
made Oct. 2010, 92 years later!)
Germany After
WWI
• Germany was ruined, their currency was worthless and
the country plunged into deepest recession ever
• 15 million were unemployed, desperately poor, and the
government had no solution- they needed a saviour
• This was Hitler’s chance to get into power without using
force –his powerful speeches played on their hopes and
fears and blamed Communists and Jews for the German
hardships
• The masses were inspired by his message of a master
race bound for Aryan dominance
Germany under Hitler’s Reign
• Nazis gained enough seats by spreading lies
about opposing parties, bullying voters and
promising to save Germany
• The media was taken over to ensure Hitler’s
image was built up and to vilify Jews
Humiliation
• Hitler united an entire nation
to turn against the “enemy”
• All Jews, even those who
had fought in WWI, were
made to wear the yellow
Star of David
• They were picked on,
businesses were boycotted,
shops were vandalized,
propaganda was designed
to emphasize their inferiority,
synagogues were burned
and homes were looted
• They created ghetto areas where they
imprisoned Jews
• Gypsies, homosexuals, and the handicapped
were also persecuted
Life in the Ghetto
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ghettos were terribly overcrowded
No sanitation
No clean water
No heat
Scarcely any food
Disease killed many
Many died of starvation while their loved ones
watched helplessly…
Someone’s father…
Someone’s mother…
Someone’s child…
Someone’s brother…
While Hitler was
invading other
countries, his army
started to take back
‘their’ ghettos
One by one, the Jews
living in the ghettos
were rounded up and
sent to concentration
camps
The Final Solution
• Senior officials did not openly talk about
genocide, however, plans were carried out to
install poison-gas chambers in what came to
be known as death camps
Inside Concentration Camps
• Worked, sometimes to death, separated from
family, at the will of soldiers
• Little food, starvation was common
•Josef Mengele:
notorious for cruel
experiments using
children attempting
to find the genetic
formula ensuring
Aryan women
gave birth to
blonde, blue-eyed
children
• Six death camps located in rural locations
close to a railway line so that cattle cars
could transport deportees from ghettos to
the gas chambers
Heroes of the Holocaust
Oskar Schindler:
• Supported the Nazi movement until all the kindergarten
children in a local ghetto ‘disappeared’
• Owned a factory that provided the German army with supplies
• Asked to secure a workforce of Jews to stay at his factory.
• Treated them well, offered them protection
• When the war ended he had rescued 1,200 Jews
Heroes of the Holocaust
Frank Foley
• British spy working in the British Passport office in
Berlin
• Issued false visas to enable German Jews to leave
the country
• Estimated that he saved 10,000 Jews
Heroes of the Holocaust
Chiune Sugihara
• Japanese Consul-General issued thousands of visas to Jews
fleeing Nazi occupied Poland
• Began spending 18–20 hours a day when his order to leave
was issued
• Was still writing visas while in transit from his hotel and after
boarding the train, throwing visas out the train window to
desperate refugees.