Connections between the Book Thief and Night (with some spoilers)
Posted on April 24, 2020 | By kdaniel24 | 1 response
In the book The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, there are some connections within the text between it and the book we are currently reading in school, Night by Elie Wiesel. For instance, it offers insights in the differences between the situation of Jews living in Nazi Allied territory and homeland Germany. For instance, in the book The Book Thief, at one point, it shows the thoughts of a Jew trapped in the German city of Stuttgart. The text states, ” He had eaten only the foul taste of his own hungry breath for what felt like weeks, and still, nothing. Occasionally voices wandered past and sometimes he longed for them to knuckle the door, to open it, to drag him out, into the unbearable light. For now, he could only sit on his suitcase couch, hands under his chin, his elbows burning his thighs. There was sleep, starving sleep, and the irritation of half awakeness, and the punishment of the floor. Ignore the itchy feet. Don’t scratch the soles. And don’t move too much…” then it describes his experiences with receiving food and the man thinks, “The food. Max divided the bread into three parts and set two aside. The one in his hand he immersed himself in, chewing and gulping, forcing it down the dry corridor of his throat. The fat was cold and hard, scaling its way down, occasionally holding on. Big swallows tore them away and sent them below. Then the carrots. Again, he set two aside and devoured the third. The noise was astounding. Surely, the Führer himself could hear the sound of the orange crush in his mouth. It broke his teeth with every bite. When he drank, he was quite positive that he was swallowing them. Next time, he advised himself, drink first. Later, to his relief, when the echoes left him and he found the courage to check with his fingers, each tooth was still there, intact. He tried for a smile, but it didn’t come. He could only imagine a meek attempt and a mouthful of broken teeth. For hours, he felt at them.” (139 to 140). In contrast, we see that the Hungarian Jews in the town of Sighet were caught completely by surprise, and thinking that the deportation came out of nowhere. It gives us insight as the what the situation was for German Jews vs. for Hungarians. The Germans appear to have been able to avoid the deportation, as they had prepared, but they weren’t saved from much, as they were living in terrible conditions, but outsider Jews were taken by surprise. These facts give us historical and psychological insights. For instance, it is learned that sometimes, people need to learn to accept their situation in order to get out of it. I also think the German Jews may have been more prepared, as they had experienced firsthand the brutality of the Nazi’s, while the people of Sighet had not. So, one should not deny hard things to accept, like the Jews of Sighet, but rather prepare for the worse, like the German Jews, as it is better safe than sorry.
The scene you quoted from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, where Max was waiting for food and feeling miserable reminds me of a scene from the book I chose, The Boys who Challenged Hitler by Phillip Hoose. In the scene you picked, Max seems to be trapped, broken down, and defeated. This is similar to a scene in The Boys who Challenged Hitler. In this scene, Knud, the protagonist, is in prison for committing acts of sabotage against the Nazis but is now being broken down by life in prison, “One night when I was in bed I saw a mouse in my cell, illuminated by the moonbeam on the floor. It was just sitting there looking at me. I was terrified. I jumped up on the bed, screaming. Guards came running. When they realized what was going on they doubled up in laughter… They slammed the door and gathered outside to watch my misery through their peephole.” This scene shows how Knud was broken down, just like Max. They both have been reduced to shadows of their former selves. These scenes show how the cruelty of the Nazis devastated people’s lives, even if they did not kill them. They shattered people’s moral universes, and showed only cruelty. People need to be shown at least a small amount of compassion to feel human. The Nazis took that ounce of compassion away from people, leaving many empty shells, even if only temporarily.