I still have a little bit left in the book, but I just thought I would throw this out there. Is anyone else having conflicted feelings about feeling sorry for Max?! I usually find in these books about WWII that it's always so easy to feel sad for the Jewish people and the whole situation, and I still do here, but it's a little different. Max was super selfish and totally abandoned his mother. What in the world? Knowing the way I feel about my mom, there is no way I could ever do that. So I was talking with my sister-in-law about this and wondering what I would have been like if I had been there during this time. Would it have just been every man for himself? What if I were German...would I have hid people in my house and risked everything? It's so easy to say yes now, but I wonder. So my question is...sympathy...or no sympathy? He left the people he loved behind to save himself. I think the gospel and knowing what we do about families gives us a different perspective and we probably know exactly what we would do in that situation, which makes it all the more difficult for me to feel sorry for Max. It kind of changes the tone of the book for me because I can feel this inner struggle about what happens to him when I read.
On a different note...I love that it is written from death's point of view. Awesome! I love that the whole thing is about finding a love of reading. Different experiences really do change things for people. I think it took me until my senior year with Crime and Punishment to really love and appreciate reading like I do now. If only I had found a grave digger's handbook when I was younger...
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Don't hate me, but I totally have sympathy for Max. (Also don't question my belief in the eternal perspective the gospel provides.)
He was definitely super selfish and abandoned his family, but I think that as I was reading it I just recognized it as too great of a temptation for him to pass up.
He didn't have a long time to think it over and make a decision. And maybe his mom was mean to him. I can't remember, did they write anything about his mom/family...? But really, maybe they were mean and his family life was terrible, which would make it seem a lot more forgivable to ditch your family.
Am I making this up too much? It was a while ago that I read it and now I'm getting all paranoid that there was a whole chapter about how saintly his family was and I've completely blocked it from my memory.
I think about what I would do in that kind of situation all the time. I *think* that my passion for justice would prevail and I would be on the right side. I also know that I am highly UN confrontational so that could make me a good candidate for hiding Jews, in secret. I also know that in weak moments of my life I have given in to peer pressure, which would make me a good candidate for giving, "Heil Hitlers" and being really in to the Hitler Youth and eventually letting myself become hardened and actually start hating people so much that I felt perfectly justified in all kinds of cruelty and even killing them. Yikes. For me what it comes down to is if I would have had the gospel in my life and been close to the spirit. If I had those things I know for sure I would do some version of the right thing, if not I would easily get sucked in to the hatred of the nazi movement and all the terrible things that went with that.
I thought a lot about being German or anything other than a Jew or German enemy during the war and the misery that the war brought a lot of people, not just the Jews. Families were torn apart and this book especially illustrated everyone being broken whether they were Jewish or not. The book definitely villanized the Nazi party, but I couldn't help but think how many Nazis there were who started out like Liesl's papa with sympathy and respect for human kind and then maybe joined the Nazi party not really knowing what that meant and then slowly became deceived and then turned in to a hard hearted hating machine willing to do any kind of terribleness.
Also, did it take anyone else a couple hundred pages to figure out that death was the author?! I didn't get it for a while and the first few pages reading about how they saw everything in colors I thought, oh great it's some super artsy fartsy narrator who is going to give me their "enlightened" perspective on World War II and the Holocaust. But then it became a page turner and then I finally understood that it was death and that made a lot more sense to me since death doesn't have a body...
I really loved the book and I was happy to read it in May. Earlier this month I went to a presentation given by a Russian survivor of World War II who fled to Germany just before the Russian invasion, was eventually reunited with her family despite the Berlin Wall dividing them, found the gospel, moved to Canada, then to my neighborhood in little old Provo, Utah. It was an amazing story about neither a Jew or a German who's life was nearly destroyed and demoralized several times.
How is Germany holding up only 6 decades later? How do you recover from that? And what's up with Africa? Why is genocide still happening in the world?
I totally see the other side Camille. I haven't seen any mention of the family yet, but maybe they were horrible. So that is part of what makes me conflicted I guess. I don't even know what that temptation would feel like.
That's what is so crazy too...what would I actually do in that situation? Sometimes when I think about that time it seems like just a story because of how awful everything was. I have no idea how any country could recover from that. I sometimes forget how easy it is to separate myself from all of these things going on if I'm not directly affected. It really is incredible to think about the things that still continue to happen in the world. These are definitely the last days and it makes me more and more grateful each day for what I have and know.
I read the book over a year ago and unfortunately, I don't remember what I felt about the Max situation.
I have often had the "what would I have done" conversation with myself. It is tricky...on one hand, the Nazi philosophies were so far off base that it seems the only right thing to do, would be to help protect anyone that you could. Obviously, that would be a huge sacrifice for you and your family. But on the other hand, the Nazi party was the government of the land and lds doctrine clearly teaches to live by the laws of the land. In cases like the Nazi party and other governments who are clearly evil, I'm sure "exceptions" can be made to that doctrine, but where do you draw the line? And hiding people involves a LOT of lies and deceit. Again, where do you draw the line?
All of that being said, there have been several times when leaders of our church have used "hiders" as positive examples. In fact, someone in this past general conference used and example.
I like the point Camille made about everyone being broken, Jewish or not. I think that is more true than we realize.
Amy! I'm so glad you are in our book club!
I am totally unconfrontational as well so, to be honest, I don't think I would do either: follow the Nazi's OR hide jews. I would probably try to just stay out of everyone's way while breaking as few laws as possible. Is that sad? Is that apathetic? Or lazy? Maybe. I agree with what Cami said about obeying the laws of the land. In my mind, during Nazi regime, that means laying low and trying your best to keep the laws of God first. But, also, I don't know that it means going against the law and hiding Jews. I don't know. I'm torn.
I think Max's family (mostly his mother) would have wanted him to take an opportunity to survive if he could. Granted, I don't think I'd want to be the one to leave my family, but I'd want to know someone in my family survived. Maybe it gave them hope...and think of the guilt Max went through after that moment.
Also, I think I would have been like Randi and done nothing. Maybe that would be different if I were hiding someone I knew and loved, but probably not for a complete stranger.
Yesterday, I walked into the Wake Forest library and the security guard who sits at a desk at the entrance was reading "The Book Thief". I just found it amusing that a library security guard was reading something with that title.
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