If you can consider history as Good
versus Evil. Think of Evil as Oppressors and Oppressed, and Good as liberators
of the Oppressed. This is a story retold over and over. Book Thief by Markus Zusak explores a different story. The story of Germans
who were not Nazis and not Jews.
World War II. Germany. The book thief
is Liesel Meminger, a preteen. Her family is lost, and she is taken in by Hans
and Rosa Hubermann. They also hide Max Vandenburg who is Jewish. Her best
friend is Rudy Steiner. She struggled to learn to read, but ultimately books
and reading became a defining and redeeming part of her life.
The central theme is how ordinary
people live within the increasing horror of World War II Germany. “To Live. Living
was Living. The price was guilt and shame.”
Often the question asked those caught
in the center is: are you a defender of the oppressed or a collaborator with
the oppressors? This book suggests that those caught in the middle are neither.
They are concerned with their own survival. When Hans Huberman dies, Liesel
says, “Goodbye, Papa, you saved me. You taught me to read.” Nothing about Nazis
or Jews. This is the nuance of this book about people who struggle to survive.
Another excellent book with characters
lost between the Nazis and their victims is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
If you would like to explore the lives
of the people trapped between the Oppressors and the Oppressed, this is an
excellent book. Life is rarely black and white, good and evil, oppressors and
oppressed. This is an excellent novel of grey, subtlety, and nuance.
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