Nightmares/Friendship

Max and Liesel both have nightmares about their past and suffer from their own survivor’s guilt. Zusak describes how Max’s nightmare is like, “A checklist. Isaac. Aunt Ruth. Sarah. Mama. Walter. Hitler. Family, friend, enemy. They were all under the covers with him, and at one point, he appeared to be struggling with himself” (205-206). For Max and Liesel having nightmares like that has made them closer. The first moment Liesel watched Max sleeping was the start of their friendship. Death was quoting their conversation about them swapping nightmares:

            The girl:”Tell me. What do you see when you dream like that?”

            The Jew:”…I see myself turning around, and waving goodbye.”

            The girl:” I also have nightmares.”

            The Jew:”What do you see?”

            The girl: “A train, and my dead brother.”

            The Jew: “Your brother?”

            The girl: “He died when I moved here, on the way?”

            The girl and the Jew, together: “JA-yes.”
            (Zusak 220).

 At the end when Max and Liesel both said, "yes" it made them know what exactly what they were going through. In spite of their age difference Max and Liesel could still relate to each other. I think everyone has nightmares, but it just depends where they are from. I can relate to having nightmares, but I cannot relate to the kind of nightmares that Max and Liesel have.

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.

Luckiness

Erik Vandenburg is Max’s father. He was a great friend to Hans Hubermann during WWI. When Max asked if Hans Hubermann still played the accordion it was because the accordion originally belonged to his father. When I read about Hans Hubermann's life during WWI, it made me think differently of him. Hans Hubermann wasn’t quiet, and mellow like Liesel described him when she first met him. Back when Hans Hubermann was younger  he was active, cheerful and funny. Hans Hubermann escaped Death for the first time when he was fighting in France. Death stated, “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 175). In WWI, Erik Vandenburg volunteered Hans Hubermann to write letters for the sergeant.“He obviously thought that today wasn’t the appropriate time for his friend to die” (Zusak 177). Because of that, Hans escaped from Death the second time.

 I do consider myself lucky because I know I am a very clumsy person. There are many of times I have accidentally hurt myself or others. I remember that I jumped on a dresser with a big mirror. When I jumped off of it, it fell on me. There was another event I was playing on the monkey bars and somehow when I went through them, I slipped and hit my head. I feel lucky I’m alive because of some of my events.

Work Cited

·                   Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.

Challenges

When Sister Maria asked the children to read, she skipped  Liesel and said it was done.  Liesel reacted to this action by trying to prove Sister Maria wrong, that she could read. When it was Liesel's turn to read, she could not comprehend what was on the pages. Death states, “You can steal a book, but you can’t read one”(77). It is sad how a teacher can look down on an elementary school student like that. If I was her age, I do not think I would be brave enough to stand up to a teacher like Liesel did. Later kids in her class were making fun of her. Liesel tried to hold her temper down, but a person can only hold on so long before they blow up. Zusak writes “By the twentieth, she snapped. It was Schmeikl, back for more" (78). She gave Ludwig Schmeikl a good beating. She cursed a lot while she was doing that.

I remember when I was in 10^th grade getting my grades checked in the counselor's office. The majority of the kids were failing and that was part of the reason they were there. A teacher came in the office and was making fun of the failing students and calling them, “a bunch of failures.” I approached  that teacher and asked him, "who are you to say all that nonsense?" By getting “mouthy” with him I got myself into trouble.

Work Cited:
Zusak, Markus.  The Book Thief.  NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.  Print.

Abandonment

Liesel hold The Grave Digger’s Handbook, as her memories of her mother and brother. That was the feeling of anxiety of being abandon.When Liesel’s brother died, she probably felt like scared, frustrated, and sad. (39) He died, by the poor condition that they were in. I think his abandonment was under the circumstances you can’t control when you died. I can’t imagine how painful that would be, when a younger sibling die in your own arms. When her mother left her to the Hubermann I think it was from the circumstances. She knew that she was very ill and has no money to take care of the kids and her. To give away her child like that was mostly like a needle pending into her heart. As a parent we always try to give what is the best for our children.

I am the oldest of four.When I was younger my parents was always working. I was responsible for everything that happens in the house and I feel like I had to be a parent.There were some days I feel like I was abandon to my siblings. I feel like I had no freedom and always taking care of the kids. We needed money to pay all the bills, so they needed someone close to take care of kids. By my parent doing that we all learned to take care of ourselves while we were young. As I grow older I slowly understand why it was me to hold the house down.

Work Cited:
Zusak, Markus.  The Book Thief.  NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.  Print.

Survivors

Eva Galler impact me the most. She escaped, by jumping off the train that was going to death camp. She is the oldest out of eight kids. She was 17 years old at that time.  Knowing that she is the oldest sibling, I felt her pain of losing her little siblings. I am also the oldest of my siblings.  I love my siblings very much like they were my kids. I grew up with the responsibility taking care of my little siblings while my parents went to work. Eva Galler jumped off the train with two of her siblings, but both got shot while they were running. After that Eva Galler went to Gentile families to families that helped her out. Later that time she got caught, but not as a Jews as a Gentile. She got a new identify and a new life. Lucky she is a girl, the Jews boys were circumcised.  They moved her to Sudetenland to work into slave farm and she got adopted. Later on she contacted her brother and sister from her dad’s first marriage. She wanted to go back to Poland, but she couldn’t. Her brother tried to help her to go to the United States, but it didn’t work so she went to Sweden. She was looking on the Red Cross List to check out who’s on the survivors list, from her city about 3,000 Jewish and only 12 survived. So I learned do whatever it takes to survived and you might be the only blood line left for your family from Eva Galler’ s survivor story. Eva Galler was born at January 1, 1924 in Oleszyce, Poland.

work cited

•      http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/data.show.php?di=record&da=survivors&ke=6