The Book Thief
The Book Thief is a novel by Australian author Markus Zusak.
Narrated by Death, the book is set in
Nazi Germany, a place and time when the narrator notes he was extremely busy.
It describes a young girl's relationship with her foster parents, the other
residents of their neighborhood, and a Jewish fist-fighter who hides in her
home during the escalation of World War II. Published in 2006, it has won
numerous awards and was listed on the The New York Times Best Seller list for
over 230 weeks.
Summary
Death describes its first encounter with a nine-year-old girl named
Liesel Meminger as she attends the funeral of her brother in the late
1930s. The brother, Werner, died on a train as their mother was taking
them to Molching, Germany, where they were to be left with a foster
family in order to distance them from their parents' past communist
sympathies. The death of the boy forces Liesel and her mother to make a
stopover for a burial. It is just after the funeral that Liesel steals
her first book, after it is dropped in the snow by a gravedigger's
apprentice. Despite being under-educated for her age and unable to read
the book, she keeps it as a final memento of her brother.
Death continues to narrate, but as a second-hand account of Liesel's
own writing from years later. Upon arriving at the home of her foster
parents, housepainter Hans Hubermann and his wife Rosa, Liesel finds it
difficult to adjust. She is haunted by nightmares about her mother and
dead brother. She eventually develops a bond with Hans, who comes to her
every night, without fail, and stays with her until she is able to go
to sleep again. This bond enables her to find normalcy and peace in her
new home. Hans even, upon noticing
The Grave Digger's Handbook
tucked under Liesel's mattress, decides to take the opportunity afforded
by the sleepless hours he spends with Liesel each night to teach her
how to read and write.
Rosa Hubermann, whose personality is much coarser than Hans', takes
Liesel under her wing in her own way by having her help with her job of
washing and delivering laundry for other households. Shortly after the
start of World War II, Rosa makes it Liesel's job to pick up and deliver
the laundry in the hopes that penny-pinched customers will feel guilty
about telling a child that they cannot afford to enlist her mother's
services any longer.
For Christmas, Liesel is given two used books, paid for in cigarettes
by Hans. The Hubermanns have a son and a daughter of their own, both of
whom are grown and live elsewhere, but visit at Christmas time. Their
son, Hans Jr., is a staunch Hitlerite who has an intense argument with
his father about his failure to obtain membership in the Nazi party (due
to a much earlier incident in which the latter painted over
anti-Semitic graffiti on a Jewish shopkeeper's door). Hans Jr. leaves
angrily, but not before suggesting that Liesel should be reading Mein Kampf rather than the sort of books that the Hubermanns have given her.
Meanwhile, Liesel befriends a neighborhood boy of the same age by the
name of Rudy Steiner, who often asks Liesel for kisses only to be
rejected each time. The pair eventually takes to stealing as an
occasional pastime, usually fuelled by Rudy's constant hunger. At a
rally on Hitler's birthday, 20 April 1940, during a public book burning,
Liesel steals a second book. The only witness is the mayor's wife, who
is also a customer of Rosa Hubermann's laundry business.
When Hans Hubermann is contacted by Max Vandenburg, the son of a Jew
who saved his life in the First World War, he takes his son's advice and
buys a copy of Mein Kampf. In it he hides the train tickets and forged
documentation necessary to get Max to the Hubermann residence, arranging
for him to arrive under cover of night. Max takes up residence in the
Hubermanns' basement, hidden underneath the steps by hanged sheets and
stacked paint cans.
Having seen Liesel take the book at the rally, the mayor's wife, Ilsa
Hermann, eventually invites Liesel to read from the books in her
extensive library. Doing so with each pick-up and delivery, Liesel
eventually learns of Ilsa's crippling self-pity over the death of her
only son during the First World War. Liesel quickly befriends Max. For
having kept watch over the fugitive Jew for many nights as he recovered
from his wearisome journey to find the Hubermanns, Max writes a short
illustrated story called "The Standover Man" for Liesel and gives it to
her as a birthday gift. The title refers to the people in one's life who
will stay comfortingly at one's bedside in times of need, just as
Liesel did for Max and as Hans had done for Liesel.
To not appear hypocritical after urging townspeople to be as
economical as possible in order to support the war effort, the mayor and
his wife discontinue their use of Rosa Hubermann's laundering services.
As Ilsa Hermann gives Liesel a letter explaining that they will be
doing their own washing from then on, she tells her that she is still
free to read from her library at any time and gives her a book to take
home with her. Knowing that this will exacerbate her family's financial
woes, Liesel reacts angrily, attacking Ilsa's state of self-pity for her
son's death, informing her "it's pathetic that you sit here shivering
in your own house to suffer for it" as she throws the offered book back
to the woman's feet.
Liesel returns to the mayor's home at a later date with Rudy and
steals the book by climbing in through the window. A short time later,
the pair encounter a group of older boys who have it out for Rudy and
they throw Liesel's stolen book into a river. Always seeking ways to
earn a kiss, Rudy retrieves the book from the ice cold water.
Upon winter's arrival in 1942, Max falls gravely ill. Even more so
than upon his first arrival at their home, Liesel keeps a relentless
vigil over Max as he sleeps without waking for days stretching into
weeks. Periodically she leaves small presents by his side – found
trinkets, usually, such as ribbons, buttons and the like –and reads to
him daily.
Max eventually wakes from his sickness and has no sooner gotten back
to normal than the party sends a man without warning to check basements
for suitability as bomb shelters. Max is miraculously able to hide in
the basement right under the nose of the party man, who concludes that
their basement is too shallow to serve as an adequate shelter.
The Hubermanns' fortunes improve with the growing danger of air raids
as Hans is employed to paint over windows so that bombers cannot see
the lights on inside the homes. In the meantime, Liesel has continued to
steal books from the Hermanns' library. One day, they find that a book,
a dictionary in fact, has been placed on the sill. Liesel steals it and
as they are leaving, looks back and sees Ilsa Hermann as she stands
behind the window and raises a hand to wave. Inside the dictionary,
Liesel and Rudy discover a letter addressed to Liesel, informing her
that the mayor's wife has known all along that they have been stealing
books and that she only hopes that Liesel will one day choose to knock
on the front door rather than sneak through the window.
When the air raid sirens begin sounding with regularity, Liesel helps
maintain calm in the designated shelter by reading to the others from
one of her books. The Hubermanns' next-door neighbor, with whom Rosa has
been feuding for years, proposes that Liesel read to her on a regular
basis in exchange for her coffee ration; the deal is struck.
Two weeks later, a group of Jews is marched through Molching toward
Dachau. As they are paraded through the town in front of a crowd of
onlookers, Hans Hubermann takes pity on an enfeebled old Jewish man and
steps forward to hand him a piece of bread. A soldier takes notice and
whips both Hans and the elderly Jew.
Regretting his actions for the attention they will surely draw to
them from the Nazis, Hans has Max leave for his own safety shortly after
the incident. Before leaving, Max tells Liesel that he has left a gift
for her that she will only receive when she is ready. With each day that
passes without a visit from the Gestapo, however, Hans begins to regret
sending Max away, believing he may have needlessly sent him away from a
danger that wasn't coming. When two "coat men" finally approach the
Hubermanns' house, Hans is relieved to think that he didn't send him
away for nothing. In fact, they have come to the wrong house, and
proceed down the street to the Steiner residence. They are interested in
taking Rudy to a special Nazi-run school based on his academic and
athletic performance. His parents decline. The punishment that Hans
Hubermann has been waiting for finally comes when he is conscripted for
military service. Alex Steiner, Rudy's father, is also drafted for
having refused to send Rudy to the special school. They leave by train
and that night Liesel wakes to discover Rosa Hubermann crying herself to
sleep in the living room with Hans' accordion clutched to her chest, a
nightly occurrence from then on.
They were upset with the fact that their parents were taken away when
another group of Jews is shepherded through Molching. Liesel and Rudy
decide to run ahead of the pack, leave pieces of bread lying along the
path, and then hide in some nearby trees. Liesel compromises her hiding
spot while trying to tell if Max is among the group, and she is spotted
after a soldier notices prisoners bending down to pick up pieces of
bread. The children are chased through the woods but manage to get away.
Rosa, deciding that Liesel is ready for Max's parting gift, reveals a
bundle of papers, not unlike that on which "The Standover Man" was
written, hidden within her mattress. During his stay with the
Hubermanns, Max had used the scraps of paper as a sort of journal and
sketchbook to pass the time. The journal is titled "The Word Shaker",
after its most significant entry, a short illustrated fable that serves
as an allegory for Nazi Germany and the power of words.
Ignoring Ilsa Hermann's suggestion to use the front door, Liesel
returns with Rudy to the mayor's home to steal again. This time she
finds that a plate of staling cookies has been left on the desk, but is
intercepted by Ilsa before she can make her escape. Liesel takes comfort
in the realization that the age of the cookies indicate that the
library belongs to Ilsa (had her husband used the room, he would surely
not have left cookies to go stale on the desk) and not the mayor. She
awkwardly reconciles with Ilsa Hermann and quickly takes her leave.
In early 1943, Liesel is greeted by a strange face when she makes her
scheduled visit to read to her neighbour, Frau Holtzapfel. It is
Holtzapfel's son, returned from Stalingrad where he lost three fingers
and a brother. After hearing the news of her second son's death, Frau
Holtzapfel appears distant and depressed every time Liesel comes to read
to her.
When a truck that Hans is riding in the back of loses control and
rolls over, he suffers from a broken leg and is sent back from the
Eastern Front. Before he arrives, however, Molching receives another air
raid warning. All but Frau Holtzapfel, who is still under the hold of
crippling depression, make their way to the bomb shelter. Her son,
Liesel, and Rosa all try to convince her to proceed to the shelter, but
to no avail. Before leaving for the shelter themselves, Liesel tells her
that if she does not come, Liesel will stop reading to her and she will
have lost her only friend. A short time after they arrive at the
shelter, Frau Holtzapfel finally removes herself from her kitchen and
joins them.
When the sirens signal that it is okay to leave the shelter, the
townspeople's attention is drawn to a bomber plane that has been downed
on the banks of a nearby river. Rudy and Liesel are the first to arrive
on the scene, where Rudy comforts the dying pilot. He places a teddy
bear on the shoulder of the pilot, who thanks him with his dying breath.
Three months later, two more groups of Jews are marched through
Molching and, like the last time, Liesel watches to see if Max is among
them. She is unsure whether to hope that he is a part of the procession,
in which case she at least knows that he is still alive, or that he is
not, in which case he might still be free, or perhaps dead. Around the
same time, Frau Holtzapfel's only surviving son hangs himself one night
from the rafters of a local laundry, devastating her further.
A month later, more Jews are paraded by and this time Max Vandenburg
is among them. When Liesel runs in among the crowd of prisoners for a
tearful reunion with her friend, they are finally pulled apart and each
of them whipped by a soldier. Rudy runs to help Liesel and to get her
off the street, but she breaks free and again runs toward the long line
of Jews to find Max. Before she can do so, however, Rudy catches up to
her and tackles her to the ground as Max is led away with the rest.
After keeping to herself for three days after the incident, Liesel
finally tells Rudy everything about the Jew they'd been hiding in their
basement after forcing him to promise that he would never tell anyone.
To cheer herself up, Liesel once more sneaks into the Hermann's
library, but instead becomes angry at what the power of words has done
to Germany and tears up one of the books in frustration. Before leaving,
she leaves an apologetic note of explanation for Ilsa Hermann, writing
that she will no longer be returning there. Three days later, Ilsa
arrives unexpectedly at Liesel's home and gifts her with a small black
book of lined pages for writing in, saying that she wrote well in the
letter she'd left in the library.
Over many weeks, Liesel writes the story of her life since arriving
on Himmel Street in the little black book while sitting in the basement
where she had first learned to read with her foster father and had later
read with Max. A few nights after she finishes her story with the line
"I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made
them right", as she rereads the book, Himmel Street is bombed without
warning.
Despite having earlier been dismissed as unsuitable for a bomb
shelter, the Hubermanns' shallow basement is the main factor that helps
make Liesel the only survivor on the whole street of the bombing. She is
liberated from the rubble by the rescue squad and is distraught by the
scene of destruction all around her. She finds Frau Holtzapfel's body
first, and then Rudy's, and after tearfully trying to revive his
lifeless body, at last gives him the kiss he'd always asked her for.
Next she finds the bodies of Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Liesel
retrieves Hans' accordion for him and cries by their side until she is
finally taken away by the emergency responders. Liesel's little black
book of reminiscences, titled "The Book Thief", is picked up from the
rubble and mistaken for trash. Death picks it up off the back of a
garbage truck as he passes with the souls of the residents of Himmel
Street in hand. Shortly after the bombing, Liesel is adopted by Ilsa
Hermann and her husband, the mayor, and Alex Steiner returns from his
military service and laments, "if only I'd let Rudy go to that school".
Rudy's father reopens his tailoring business and Liesel passes the time
by helping him in the store. After the war, Max is liberated from Dachau
and returns to find Liesel at the store, where they share an emotional
reunion.
Many years later, Death comes for Liesel in Sydney, and reveals to
her that he has carried her little black book, "The Book Thief", with
him for all these years. Astonished, she asks, "Could you understand
it?", to which he simply notes, "I am haunted by humans."
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