Liesel and Max

     Max Vandenburg is older than Liesel, but they many things in common. Liesel lost her mother when she was ten, while Max lost his father when he was four, so they both lost parents at a young age. Neither Liesel or Max has any family left, with Max's family having been taken by the Nazis, and Liesel's parents missing and her brother dead. Liesel and Max have both led depressing lives, yet they have perservered long enough to meet each other. Max's life has been the hardest, with him being a Jew, Max has spent most of his life in the slums, including the ghettos. He has spent the last two years hiding in an abandoned factory, praying that he would not be found, captured, and possibly killed. Max finally came to live with the Hubermann's, and into Liesel's life.
     Liesel is quickly threatened with the destruction of her precious books if she does not keep Max's living arrangements a secret. She is drawn to the young stranger hiding in her house, much like Death is drawn to her. Max and Liesel become fast friends through their love of words and books. Max's arrival gives Liesel's life new purpose by encouraging her to bring him news of the outside world into his little basement corner. Max is not allowed outside, for fear he will be captured and taken away, since he is living in the center of Nazi
Germany. Liesel delights herself by bringing him newspapers with their unfinished crosswords, and a child like view of the world outside, both of which he deeply appreciates.
     When Liesel's birthday arrives, he has nothing to give her, and neither does her parents. Being determined to give Liesel a gift, Max takes his well worn copy of Mein Kamph, repaints it in a story he calls The Standover Man. "During that week, Max had cut a collection of pages from Mein Kamph and painted them over in white. He then hung them up with pegs on some string, from one end of the basement to the other." (Zusak, 223). Liesel was very happy when she received the story, and read it multiple times. The Standover Man turned out to be Max's life story. In the book, Max describes his hardships and his relationship to the girl who turned his life upside down. "Now I think we are friends, this girl and me. On her birthday, it was she who gave a gift-to me. It makes me understand that the best standover man I've known is not a man at all . . .". (Zusak, 235).

Works Cited

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief . New York City, NY:Alfred A. Knoph, 2005.Print.

The Accordionist and The Struggler

     The accordion that Hans Hubermann owns played an important part in his survival of the first world war. He began fighting in the army when he was twenty-two, in France, where he was lucky enough to meet a man named Erik Vandenburg. Erik Vandenburg owned the accordion that would eventually belong to Hans Hubermann. He was a German Jew, who became friends with Hans. "The two of them became friends due to the fact that neither of them was terribly interested in fighting." (Zusak, 175). Both men enjoyed gambling, smoking cigarettes, and a love of playing the accordion.
     One day when the men were once again lounging about, their commander came and asked them who had good handwriting. The men had had experience with this type of situation before. The commander would ask them to volunteer for an innocent task, and whoever would volunteer would end up doing the most menial and disgusting chores. The commander then informed them that the person who did this would not go out to fight that day. "If someone stepped forward now, the platoon would make his life a living hell for the rest of their time together. No one likes a coward. On the the other hand, if someone was to be nominated. . ." (Zusak, 177). Erik Vandenburg save Hans Hubermann's life by volunteering him for that job, because the day Hans spent writing letters, everyone in his platoon was slaughtered, including Vandenburg. Hans took Erik's accordion, and eventually found his wife and son in Stuttgart. A promise was made that if they should ever need help, they should contact Hans Hubermann.
     Max Vandenburg shows up on Hans Hubermann's doorstep, because he is a Jew and needs a place to hide from the Nazis. Max knows that if Hans Hubermann still has the accordion then his father's sacrifice must have meant something to him. Max also understands that it is not necessarily luck that saved Hans Hubermann's life, but his father's intuition. Death nearly had Hans Hubermann that day, but it was the intervention of what some German's would call an enemy that saved the life of one of their own. Death says "I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They're running at me." (Zusak, 174). Hans Huberman had a mixture of luck, and the strength of a good friendship. I consider myself particularly lucky because I have a knack for finding money, and I also got into the Gateway to College program.

Death, the Narrator

     Death can be a very scary topic. Many people probably think of Death as the Grim Reaper. The way Death is portrayed in The Book Thief, he is tired and lonely. Death makes for an interesting narrator because he can be everywhere at once, is well versed in the inner workings of people dying, and bears a strange obsession with a book thief named Liesel Meminger.
     Death saw Liesel Meminger three times in her life, each a different color. The first time he saw her the sky was a blinding white. Death had come her brother, who died on a train in a fit of coughing. The sky outside was a blinding white, the blinding white of snow.(Zusak, 6). When Death first met her, he became fascinated, with the person he would come to know as the book thief.
     Death then met Liesel Meminger yet again, years after that first fateful winter night. The sky this time was black, and as he describes it, that moment was that at which it is darkest before the dawn.(Zusak, 9). Liesel comes to see a pilot who has crashed his plane near Himmel Street. Death again takes time out of his busy schedule to watch the book thief as her friend comforts the dying pilot. Death then steps in, loosens the man's soul, picks it up and slowly drifts away, with the sky still a violent pitch of black.
     The final time Death meets Liesel Meminger, known to him still as the book thief, the sky is a deep, dark red.(Zusak, 12). The street on which she lives has obviously been blown to bits by an air raid. There is rubble and debris everywhere, with bodies strewn about. Liesel is holding a book, and Death again stops to study her, even though he has a heavy workload, having hundreds of souls to take to the afterlife that night. He knows that his job that night will be exhausting, yet he still does it. Death is correct on one important point-Who else is going to take his job?

Works Cited
Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York City, NY:Alfred A. Knoph, 2005. Print.

Survivor Story

     World War Two officially began in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. The Polish Army was quickly defeated. The man who I chose to write about was Shep Zitler. He was a Lithuanian Jew who lived in Vilna, Lithuanian. Vilna was a very popular religious town, and was known as the center of Eastern European Jewish culture. In February of 1939, Shep Zitler was drafted into the Polish Army. He was mistreated and discriminated against, mainly because the Polish people did not like the Jewish people any more than the Germans did.
     Shep Zitler's unit fought bravely, but was eventually captured in September of 1939. His unit was sent to a prisoner of war labor camp. Shep Zitler was a prisoner of was for five years and seven months. He was sent around to various labor camps. AS a Jew, he was given the most menial and disgusting jobs. His life was often threatened, but he was afforded certain sanctions under the Geneva Convention. Zitler was liberated on April 22nd, 1945. He found out later on that most of his family had been killed. Shep made it to America on December 23rd, 1948.
     Shep Zitler's story inspired me because of how incredibly lucky he was have survived the combat and labor camps during World War Two. I was also incredibly lucky to get into the Gateway to College program. My story of survival began back in November of 2008. My grandmother died, and the entire world suddenly crumbled around me. She was my entire support system, both in life and my education. When she died, I honestly did not know how I was going to make it through all of it. After my grandmother died, my performance in school began to fail. I started skipping classes, and fell so far behind I could not catch up. I dropped out of school February of this year. Once I came to terms with my grandmother's death, life began to gain back some of its meaning to me. I found out about the Gateway to College program, and my road to redemption began anew.

Here is a link to the website where I found Shep Zitler's story:
http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/