Frybabe...how good of you to take the time to write to Random House about the page numbers in this book. It would be wonderful if they responded.
Babi has suggested that the cheap paper might have caused the ink to run - but did they have ink? Paint, maybe...
Why would the page numbers be written in this "grunge" font? Thanks for writing RH! I would be happy if this mystery is cleared up before we finish here.
Traudee, I can see where such a parade might be held in secret as people were taken
to railway stations and transported off in freight trains. But these people seem to be on the last stretch of their journey, taken off the trains - and now on trucks a few miles from Dachau.
Zusah writes:
"
Perhaps death camps were kept secret, but at times people were shown the glory of a labor camp like Dachau."
Some of the soldiers given this assignment were only boys, we're told. They had the Furhrer in their eyes.
Liesel would write in her book - "there were the poorest souls alive." (Do you think she put page numbers in this book she is writing?)
"Once in a while they would meet her eyes with their defeat. She could only hope they could reach the depth of sorrow in her face to recognize it was true, not fleeting."
The next scene with Hans handing bread to the old man, with "eyes the color of agony" - is almost word for word what Zusak relates from the story his mother told him as he was growing up. You can read it in this interview
Frybabe brought to us -
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/markuszusak/Do you suppose Liesel is Markus Zusak's mother?Another thing that puzzled me - we're told that there were
two more such parades of Jews through Molching to Dachau. Rudy is acting quite wreckless, isn't he? He passes out 6 pieces of bread, and then has to run like the wind to get away from the guards. But why did he include Liesel in this? Is he confident that she too can outrun the guards? I really didn't understand what Rudy was trying to do.
Laura wrote yesterday that false-started because he didn’t want to stand out from the crowd - but what about this incident?