Book Thief by Markus Zusak ~ March Book Club Online - Pre- Discussion

[JoanR]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  everyone is welcome to join in.

 

The Book Thief - Coming March 1!
PREDISCUSSION Now!
   

"Fortunately, this book isn't about Death; it's about death, and so much else."   "Some will argue that a book so difficult and sad may not be appropriate for teenage readers. "The Book Thief" was published for adults in Zusak's native Australia, and I strongly suspect it was written for adults. Many teenagers will find the story too slow to get going, which is a fair criticism. But it's the kind of book that can be life-changing, because without ever denying the essential amorality and randomness of the natural order, "The Book Thief" offers us a believable, hard-won hope. The Book Thief is a complicated story of survival that will encourage its readers to think." (Bookmarks Magazine) "How can a tale told by Death be mistaken for young-adult storytelling? Easily: because this book's narrator is sorry for what he has to do. The youthful sensibility of "The Book Thief" also contributes to a wider innocence. While it is set in Germany during World War II and is not immune to bloodshed, most of this story is figurative: it unfolds as symbolic or metaphorical abstraction. "The Book Thief" will be widely read and admired because it tells a story in which books become treasures. And because there's no arguing with a sentiment like that." (New York Times)

Discussion Schedule: March 1-2 ~ Prologue March 3-7 ~ Part I & II March 8-14 ~ Part III & IV               March 15-21 ~ Part V & VI                  March 22-28 ~ Part VII & VIII March 29-April 4 ~ Part IX & X

Some Questions for Your Consideration

1. What information can you find about the author, Markus Zusak?  Where and when was he born?  What drew him to the subject  of Munich and life in Nazi Germany at the start of the second world war, years before he was born?  What had he written before The Book Thief?

2. To your knowledge, did most of the German people share the same sense of hope, security and trust in Adolf Hitler under his presidency and Nazi rule in the 1930's?

3. What do you know of the spread of communism within Germany at this time?
   

Relevant Links ~ A Brief History of Germany Rule

Discussion Leaders:  JoanP & Andy

JoanR:Good morning!
Thank you so much for the background material, Traude!  It is most helpful.

I have to return my library copy but I have ordered a paperback from Amazon - it should be here in a few days.

I love the way this book is written - so lyrical.  And somehow, with such economy of words, this author puts a scene vividly before your eyes.  Very pictorial.  I'm just plain crazy about this kind of writing.

[Gumtree]

Me Too !  I read the book a couple of times when it was first published and am really looking forward to reading it again - especially with this group. All I have to do is to locate where I've stored the book - or maybe mount a search party to comb over my sons' shelves in case one or other  has purloined it. 

[JoanP]

Good morning! Traudee, so glad you made it here during the Pre-discussion.  Your experience and knowledge of pre-war Germany are so valuable in setting Zusak's story.
Am I correct in understanding that there are still penalties in Germany for the possession of Nazi paraphernalia?  I can't imagine how shocking it must have been for you to see that Nazi flag on display - right here in Arlington, VA. That was in the early 50's - war memories still fresh.  Somehow I'm not  surprised - I can still remember an American Nazi Party here in Arlington...
under the leadership of George Lincoln Rockwell.  He even ran for President - (of the US!) in 1964   Needless to say he only received about 200 votes, but his anti-communist and his Marxian anti-semitic views were well known. He even ran for Governor of VA. I guess you could say that he suffered severe penalties for his blatant Nazi displays - he was assassinated in 1967...

I'm interested in hearing more about the communist party in pre-war Germany.  Jude, from what you posted of the key elements of 25 point program in 1920 - anti -parlimentism, Pan German racism,Social Darwinism, antisemitism, totalatarism and opposition to any form of liberalism.  They claimed that the treaty of Versaille at the end of WW1 , was a Jewish Communist plot to humiliate Germany. The party began in 1919 and Hitler became its head in 1921.

I get the impression that since there were so many living in Germany who might fall into any of these categories, the country was not united in a happy state under Hitler's presidency in the years preceding the war.   Traudee, what happened to those who fell into these categories - were they imprisonned, exiled or simply put on a watch list.  I sense an atmosphere of FEAR under all the professed optimism of the German people under Hitler. 

[JoanP]

Those of you who have finished the book - and praise its poetry, its lyricism with such obvious delight - are proof that the book is not an oppressive story, another holocost story.  Considering the backdrop, this is indeed heartening. It is important that we understand what is going on around the story, I agree.  

JoanR, your mention of the author's "economy of words"  reminds me of Markus Zusak's admiration for Hemingway...


Oh, I think this is going to be a rich marvelous discussion as we share this rich and marvelous book!
Gum, we wait for the news that you have located your book!

The link to German Rule that Andy supplied is in the heading now so you can refer to it whenever.
Traudee, when you bring in the link to which you referred earlier, we'll put that up too...
 

[marcie]

Thanks for the link to that overview of German history, Alf.

[Frybabe]

what happened to those who fell into these categories - were they imprisonned, exiled or simply put on a watch list.  I sense an atmosphere of FEAR under all the professed optimism of the German people under Hitler.

I am not sure this is what you had in mind but here is some of what went on before WWII.

http://frank.mtsu.edu/~baustin/knacht.html

I first learned of Kristallknacht (Night of the Broken Glass) in an article(not this one) in Hamodia. It left quite an impression. The above goes a little farther to explain the progression leading to the Halocaust.

[straudetwo]

So much to day - where to begin?
I'll start with Frybabe's last post. Thank you for the lnk. The information is absolutely vital.  

Kristallnacht was a carefully planned attack against Jewish businesses, carried out systematically in the entire country. It actually began in the daytime, and I was a witness.  
I tutored in my high school years; the girls came to my house, except for one whose mother asked me to come to theirs.  We both lived in suburbs at some distance from the city on opposite banks of the river Neckar. To get there I had to take the streetcar into the city and then ride another  out of the city all the way to the city's airport on the other bank of the river - a time-consuming trip. The girl's father was commandant of the airport- not a person one could say "no" to.

On th afternoon of November 9, 1938 I was in the streetcar  back in the city and on the way home.  In the middle of the business district the tram suddenly slowed, an angry crowd was shouting, shaking fists, as hordes of burly men smashed the windows of storefront busisnesses. A picture or senseless destruction.
That night, the Jewish cemetery on our side of the river was vandalized. So were synagogues all over the country. After that the persecution of Jews started in full force. Many were expelled. Those who stayed had to wear a yellow star. At the end of that year, none of my Jewish classmates were left. They vanished - like the friendly butcher on the corner, who was simply gone one day.  ...

JoanP, aha, Rockwell was his name. It's all coming back to me now.  But I never cease to be amazed by the outrages voiced and committed under the protection of the First Amendment.

The Nazi government was the most repressive except for Russia. The individual was nothing. The State was everything. The party was almighty and an intimidating presence even in the smallest municipalities, in charge of every single institution. Informers were everywhere, even the churches. The original concentration camps were actually established for non-conformists (!), including  members of the church, for example Pastor Martin Niemöller  (q.v.)(who survived) and Dietrich Bonnhöffer (q.v.),who was executed. 

More to come

[ALF43]

Oh Traude- how horrifying for you- a young, impressionable high schooler.  This is a horrible account for a young woman to have embedded into the psyche.

Do you believe that the the German people were as passive as depicted?  Did they and their families believe that silence might make it all go away?
 Do you think that it is true what the article above states:
the Kristallnacht made it clear that the Nazis would encounter little opposition?

Your first hand account enables us to see so much clearer how the progression of this era unfolded and WHY. 

[Gumtree]

Traude Thank you.  How painful the memories must be. I was just a child living here in the antipodes and to a large degree insulated from the war but my heart aches for those caught up in such a maelstrom.  {{{{hugs}}}}

[straudetwo]

OhAndy, ,  thank you.
 
There was plenty of opposition before Hitler became Chancellor in January of 1933. After that any and all opposition was brutally suppressed.  Contrarians were silenced, imprisoned, an unknown number killed.

As I said, the early Nazi concentration camps were built originally for civilian political opponents: Communists, Socialists, "sexual deviants", and others.   Between 1933 and 1945, 20,000 such camps were built in Germany and in the occupied countries (Poland, the Netherlands for example).  
There is a wealth of information on the web, under Nazi Camps, for example.  Perhaps you would link pertinent information here. I have trouble deciphering and  transmitting long URLs.  Thank you.
That's why I make typos, no matter how hard I try not to.

A massive, universal, unstoppable indoctrination of  the populace began in 1933.  In 1938 there was no more OPEN [/b]opposition. Now the main target were the Jews and their extermination. I choke when I say this, but it is the truth.,

Re question 2 "... did most of the German people share the same sense of hope, security and trust in Adolf Hitler under his presidency and Nazi rule in th 1930s?"

I don't know about most people, I was a child.
In 1931,  my father was transferred from the idyllic small town in the Rhineland at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers, where I was born,  to Mannheim, a large industrial city. We lived in quiet suburb in a handsome house built of lovely sandstone in Jugendstil[=German Art Nouveau) on a corner of main street. We rented the apartment on the first floor (in Europe that means one flight up from the ground floor. The latter is called parterre).
This was two years before Hitler became chancellor.

I remember different groups of people marching by the house, always a man ahead waving a flag. There were different flags,  a red one with hammer and sickle,  a red-black-gold one (the Socialists), and a red-white-black one (the Nationalists).

"Rowdies", said my mother. "Close the windows! " My father gently explained.
There were also Catholic processions; there was  a Catholic party endorsed by the Catholic Church = The ZentrumPartei. Despite its name,  "centric" it was not.
Two years later  there was no more Catholic party, or any other save the NSDAP,  no more processions.
Much worse was in store.

More soon about hope, security and trust.  

[Ella Gibbons]

History as factual, distant and debatable I like; emotional and dramatical I avoid.  Nevetheless, while at B&N today I bought a copy of this book, knowing it was on the schedule for this month and although I have read your posts and have been assured that it is not sad, I hesitate to read it.  I don't find "death as natural as living" as ALF indicated although I can understand her view.  I have no idea how to describe death other than in adjectives such as terrible, awful, etc.

Traudee's posts, while not depressing  or meant to be, are indicative of Germany's children, a decade or two depicted all too well in The DIARY OF ANNE FRANK.

I also purchased a thin book titled IN THE WAKE OF THE PLAGUE by Norman Cantor (14th century plague).  Factual.

Perhaps it is a matter of fiction and nonfiction for me?

I've skimmed a few pages of the book, which I will reread, but am a bit nonplussed at the language for teenagers?  I know, I know, they are different than we are, but..................

GUMTREE, how we, in American's white-covered North, envy your sun, sea, sand and surf and how interesting that the author's grandparents, from Munich, settled there as discplaced persons from Germany?  Were there many that did the same?

FRYBABE, I know it wasn't at all funny, but you made me smile at your description of the snow plows plowing you back into your driveway.  The stuff of cartoons.

[Frybabe]

Ella I finally had to hire a couple of kids to finish digging me out after the second snow storm. Total number of days off work - five. The snow is very slowly melting. The squirrel and birds are quite happy with the bird seed I put out. I see my neighbor has put up a squirrel station in his front yard. The ground is still very much covered with snow.

[JoanP]

"...but am a bit nonplussed at the language for teenagers?"

 Ella, I know we are not getting into this story until next week, but would really appreciate it if you could expand on what you meant?  Do you mean you thought the language too strong for today's teens to read?  I'm still puzzled over why Random House decided to publish this as a book for young people - and why our public libraries shelve it in the Y section.  Zusak seems puzzled with this too - he did not write the book for teens.

Frybabe, thank you so much for the link - it really helped to understand that the Jews were being persecuted years before the war ever began - and Traudee, how can we thank you for sharing these memories.  Ella wonders how Zusak's  story can be considered "poetic, lyrical"...even, "beautiful."   Can those of you who have already read the book assure Ella that it will not be another holocaust story?  How does Zusak tell such a story?  I realize that I'm on real thin ice here, because I don't want to spoil things for those who haven't read the book yet, -  but I really want to keep Ella with us!


Traudee, from what you've written, we see there were many others besides the Jews who lived in fear during the 30's under Hitler's rule -
"Communists, Socialists, "sexual deviants" - and once such a list gets started, it keeps growing, I would imagine.  

This site tells of the first of the "political prisons" - Dachau.  Since it is located a few miles outside of Munich and the story is set in Munich, it might be worth reading up on it.

I can see that this was not an easy time for a child to grow up in Germany.  If parents were concerned about what was going on all around them, they surely must have conveyed this nervousness to their children, even if they told them to "shut the windows and doors"  whenever something unpleasant was going on.

Our snow has begun to melt, though it is at that really ugly city-snow stage - piled 5-6 feet high at intersections and so black you can hardly tell it is snow.  My grandson, who spent much of his "snow" days on his own unplowed street was struck by the black snow when he finally saw what old snow looks like.  I don't think he really believes it is snow. Our last storm was 10 days ago - and still have streets, sidewalks that are not navigable.

[salan]

I read this book over a year ago.  It is one of the best books I have ever read.  I, too, wondered how it got classified as youth fiction.  I have just started reading it again for next month's discussion and I am already noticing things I missed the first time.  I very seldom re-read books as there are so many out there just waiting to be read; but this one is definitely worth  a second go round.  Ella, please give the book a chance and join us in March.
Sally

[Gumtree]

GUMTREE, how we, in American's white-covered North, envy your sun, sea, sand and surf and how interesting that the author's grandparents, from Munich, settled there as discplaced persons from Germany?  Were there many that did the same?

Ella: Yes indeed, they came in their thousands from right across Europe and UK. Initially Australia welcomed its 'New' Australians as refugees on humanitarian grounds. Once the recovery from the war got going and became boom times the skills shortage hit hard and so Govt then sought skilled workers. Migrants from a diversity of trades and professions were actively encouraged. By 1950 200,000 people had arrived.  They and their descendants have become an integral part of our society and have added a richness to our culture.

Australia has always had successive waves of migrants and is very active in settling refugees today. In addition thousands of newcomers still arrive each year seeking a life better or perhaps just different from the one they leave behind. Most find what they seek and become naturalised citizens within about five years. Of course the disgruntled ones hate it here and go back home but amazingly a large percentage of those return to Aust within a year to settle permanently. Our current mining boom has seen the skills shortage scenario being repeated as the Govt again seeks migrants to fill gaps in the workforce.

Here's a fact sheet if you're interested:
http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/04fifty.htm

[Ella Gibbons]

Thanks, GUMTREE, that's interesting information, do you know how many Jewish refugees Australia took in during the NAZI years and WWII?

I know our country has been severely criticized for restrictions of Jewish immigration during those years.  FDR's reasoning was that the depression limited the number of jobs for Americans, consequently there would have been no jobs available for refugees.  Maybe I can find something onlline about that.

I'll continue reading this book, I have fallen in love with PAPA.  In my lifetime I have known a few men who have his character traits; not all in one person but scattered throughout.

JOANP, words like "asshole" and "lick my ass" are startling to read (for me, anyway).  I would not recommend this book for teenagers because of such language.

[Ella Gibbons]

Probably more than anyone wanted to know, but:

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007411

http://www.historynet.com/fdr-st-louis.htm

[Gumtree]

Thanks, GUMTREE, that's interesting information, do you know how many Jewish refugees Australia took in during the NAZI years and WWII?

I know our country has been severely criticized for restrictions of Jewish immigration during those years.  FDR's reasoning was that the depression limited the number of jobs for Americans, consequently there would have been no jobs available for refugees.  Maybe I can find something onlline about that.

Ella Between 1933 and 1945 Australia took in 8,200 Jewish refugees.

The thinking here was much the same as in US - unemployment etc and also Australia favoured British immigrants which reflected our origins as a British colony. All others nations were considered 'alien' though originally settlers had come from all over the world.

Try these links for more detail:

http://www1.yadvasham.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word

http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/docs/refugeeweek/2009


The Jewish people here are well integrated into the community and have made tremendous contribution to our society. I grew up in a suburb which had a large Jewish component so many of our near neighbours and of course, some of my classmates were Jewish. Their race and religion was never a topic of conversation. In fact, our next door neighbour was the Rabbi and his family. They were regarded as no different from the Scottish Presbyterian family on the other side.

[JudeS]

Ella
Thanks for those two interesting articles.  It was material I had not read before and adds nicely to the background material
about WW2.  Although they deal with the USA it shows an overall Attitude to the saving of the Jewish population.

Many Jews from Germany escaped to Shanghai (I know two personally) , to Cuba, Mexico and other South American countries.

 

[JoanP]

Gum, Ella, thanks to your posts and links on migration to Australia from Germany, we get a clearer idea of the kind of stories the author heard from his  German mother.  I can imagine how she must have felt -  she could exhale now, and feel free to relate what she and her neighbors had been through in Germany. Let's remember that this book was based on mama's stories.   Don't you think it must have been difficult for the former enemies - German and  UK immigrants  to exist side by side in Australia at that time?  How about the  Germans and the Jewish refuges?  8600 of them?  Gum, you say they are well integrated now, so many years later.  Can you tell if they settled in the larger cities when they first arrived?  Hopefully they assimilated and did not form their own tight knit community - although I can see that would be a natural thing to do.

Ella - thanks for those examples of the language that had startled you.  All the more shocking when you consider who was using such language!  I won't go into the story, except to say that it wasn't PAPA!  I haven't read very far into the book - perhaps we will learn where such talk came from.  I would imagine that young people reading this book are familiar with such talk - but not coming out of the mouth of...an adult.

 

[Ella Gibbons]

I would imagine that young people reading this book are familiar with such talk - JoanP

Oh, I think so too.  And they probably use that language sometimes around each other, but not with their parents I would hope.  They certainly would not have used it in our home!

[joangrimes]

Oh I think maybe Random House made a mistake in designating the book as meant for Young People because the Author himself seems surprised that it was designated as such.  I am sure that none of us would be comfortable with the use of such language with anyone and certainly not with our children.
Joan Grimes

[Gumtree]

 Don't you think it must have been difficult for the former enemies - German and  UK immigrants  to exist side by side in Australia at that time?  How about the  Germans and the Jewish refuges?  8600 of them?  Gum, you say they are well integrated now, so many years later.  Can you tell if they settled in the larger cities when they first arrived?  Hopefully they assimilated and did not form their own tight knit community - although I can see that would be a natural thing to do.

JoanP: that's a very difficult question as there are so many variables. Many of the refugees or 'displaced persons' and indeed later migrants responding to the skills shortage were initially required to work in rural areas or to work on major engineering projects such as the Snowy River Hydro Electric Scheme for a couple (maybe up to five)  years before they could settle wherever they liked.
Some chose to stay in the country towns or regional centres but many wanted city life and it is only natural that those of any nationality would wish to be among their own and they congregated together or joined existing groups in the cities.So like most of the world, we have ethnic communities within our cities but whose members are simultaneously Australians as well..

 Some immigrants do not easily assimilate even now, but their children do especially if they attended school here - the grandchildren are usually dinkum Aussies. Foreign nationalism comes to the fore at some sporting events such as the soccer....even the tennis.

I have many friends who are German or Jewish by birth or extraction. There is no overt antagonism between them but one cannot know how they feel personally.

[straudetwo]

Gumtree,  many thanks for our posts rabout the successful integration of DPs in Australia.

For more information here is a link about displacement camps in general

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displaced_Persons_camp

[straudetwo]

I'm relieved that the link transmitted in my preceding post worked.

The first paragraph in that URL is of particular importance.  In this connection the information given under "Resettlement of DPs" is also of interest.

Here is what Albert Camus said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1957:
"Do you know that over a period of twenty-five yers, begween 1922 and 1947, seventy million Europeans - men, women and children - have been uprooted, deported, killed?"

[straudetwo]

Ella,  
I was not aware that the book contains strong terms uttered by some (?) characters because I have read only excerpts on line, which didn't contain any.

Well,  I was a teenager in Europe at the same time as the author's mother, the source of his information.
But the incontrovertible truth is that I  did not grow up with objectionable words, never heard any from my parents,  classmates or anyone else. They simply did not exist.  Eventually I learned what the French "merde" means, and what the German equivalent is, but I was never tempted to use either.

The sad truth is that four-letter words have become part of every-day language.  There are people who can't seem to do without. Just today, surfing the TV,  I happened on an episode of Supernanny where half of the children's utterances was bleeped out.

Last year I borrowed a CVD from the library of the highly lpraised movie The Squid and the Whale with Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, based on a true story by Noah Baumbach,who directed the film.
Whatever merit the story had, it was ruined for me by the truly appalling language used by the four main characters,  mother, father, two sons.  Thank goodness I did not buy the thing!  Mercy.

[straudetwo]

Getting back to question 2 regarding hope, security and trust.

I cannot answer the question satisfactorily. Raised in the twenties, I was very close to my fahter,  an officer in the First World War,  wounded at Verdun in France. He who told me about the horrors of the war, the trenches, the attacks with toxic gas hich left an uneven and permanent facial discoloration.

He also told me of the chaos that awaited the troops - or what was left of them - when they walked back on foot from the western front across the Rhine. He talked about the revolution, an inflation of a magnitude never seen before, and of the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles and the (eminently reasonable, he thought) Fourteen Points proposed by President Wilson.

On the other hand,  France (under GeorgesClėmenceau) and  Britain (under David Lloyd George) insisted on harsh "punishment" (Margaret MacMillan) so she she would never rise again.

Historical analysts have said then, and later, that the conditions imposed on Germany were indeed one of the reasons why an exhausted country that had lost part of its land on all sides, all its colonies, obligated to pay reparations , laboring through a deep depression, was "fertile territory" for Hitler and his demagoguery.

Margaret MacMillan discounts that theory in her book Paris 1919, and Richard Holbrooke seconds her opinion in his Foreword.

From what I learned,  Hitler did bring hopeinitially.  Just as Gumtree said in an earlier post, he did put people back to work on building an elaborate highway system,  the Autobahnen.
 
In all of his excessively long rants on radio he hectored against the Versailles Treaty and the unfair treatment of Germany.  (Say anything often enough and you will be believed ...)

Under the stipulations of the Versailles Treaty Germany was allowed no more than 100,000 men in arms. The Rhineland was a demilitarized zone and under French occupasion (with French Moroccon sldiers) until 1931.

Austria lost Hungary, Romania, Bohemia, Moravia, Istria, Slovenia, and other countries east of the Danube river. Only the core of ethnic Austrians was left.  The peace-makers in Versailles denied an incorporation of that core of Austria into Germany. It became an independent republic.

In  March 1938 Hitler informed the Reichstag, the German Parliament, of the "Anschluss" of Austria, a "REconnection" with Germany that had never existed and was in fact an annexation.

[straudetwo]

This is a map of the Austria-Hungary Empire in 1914 :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Austria-Hungary_map.svg

[ALF43]

 Thanks to both Straude and Gum for their own personal opinions and the wonderful links provided.  It is so important that our review encompasses this build up to the horrors that follow. 
 Hitler took complete control of the government and pursued an aggressive policy that eventually sparked the tragic events of World War II.

In less than a week our discussion will commence.

[salan]

What chapters will we be covering the first week?  I am re-reading the book and don't want to get too far ahead.
Sally

[JoanP]

Sally, we'll begin on Monday...gee, that's only three days away!  Look in the heading of this discussion for the discussion schedule.  We promise to keep it current.

Thanks for all the information setting the stage for the story...and Traudee will be with us as an eye witness.  It doesn't get any better than that.  Markus Zusak had his mother, we have Traudee!

[countrymm]

I started the prologue last night and ordered the book on my Kindle, so I'm ready to get started!

[Frybabe]

Countrymm we are discussing the book over on the following link. When a book goes from pre-discussion to active discussion they open a new link so follow me over:

http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=1190.0

[JoanP]

Thanks for the message directing to countrymm to the discussion, Frybabe!  We can give her a big welcome when she shows up.  In the meantime, I'll close this Prediscussion, but leave it up because it contains some really good information about Germany at the time.