Connections to The Book Thief

I am currently on Part Seven of “The Book Thief” and many things have occurred. Liesel’s foster family is still hiding a Jew and bomb scares litter throughout the city of Munich. While the Jewish man named Max continually stays hidden in the basement of Liesels home. He passes the time by tearing out pages of his book “My Struggle” written by Hitler. He then coated the pages in white paint and began writing his own story. This reminds me of the book of Anne Frank’s Diary. She was a Jewish girl hiding out during the treacherous World War II. Max and Anne’s struggles are the same and Anne Frank’s story still amazes me to this day. I read Anne Frank’s Diary a while back and the line that captures my attention and touches my heart the most is, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” ― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl. Max is like Anne because he still believes people are good because Liesel is his friend and she is there for him. Max is inquitive, creative, thoughtful and kind. And so is Anne Frank.

The Book Thief in general reminds me of slavery in America because this book is dated back when people persecuted Jews and we did the same to African Americans by working them to death and forcing them into slavery. Africans were taken away from their homes, stripped away from their families, and starved to death. These same things happened to the Jewish people and I don’t think many people realize that we did the same to the Africans as we did to the Jews. Slavery was a big deal and is the same level of horribleness as The Holocaust. I think some people weigh the Holocaust as more terrible because its so well-known and slavery was tolerated back then and thought of as ok. Even in this book that I am reading the narrator who is Death itself thinks the piling up of Jews is horrible. In the book death describes its experiences with picking up every dead body, “Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listen to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words,” (Zusak 350).  In history class I learned that Jews were sent into showers and instead of water, poison leaked from the shower head and Jews desperately tried to cling to life as they scratched the walls of the shower. I even saw some images of them. It was horrific and in this book Death goes on to explain how many souls he picked up. Its crazy, if anyone is reading this please do not allow history to repeat itself. Ever,