The Book Thief

Actually, Markus Zusak only wanted to write down his parents’ memories of the Second World War and how it all began. When books were burned and people were driven through the streets like cattle. But sometimes you have to invent stories to tell the truth, he had said in an interview. Just like the story of the bookshop owner who tells us about death. Liesel Meminger, the bookshop owner, is nine years old when death first comes to her in 1939. It is winter, freezing cold. She is on the run with her mother, a communist, and her brother from the Nazis; they have already caught their father. On the way, her younger brother dies. At the funeral, the undertaker slips off his coat and Manual for cemetery caretakers. Published by the Bavarian Cemetery Association out of the pocket. Liesel, who cannot read or write, picks it up and keeps it. It is the only thing that will remain of her old life and the beginning of her career as a book thief. Later she will learn to read with this book, her foster father will teach her and open up a new world for her that is the world of books. She secretly borrows it, some she gets as a gift, others she steals or rescues. Goethe's Faust is there, the lighthouse, a Duden and also Mein Kampf. The books give her comfort, are a source of comfort and survival.

With her foster parents, Liesel, „the runt,“ as her foster mother calls her, is lucky. And so Liesel’s story is also the story of the Hubermanns, at Himmelstraße 33 in Molching. That of her foster mother Rosa, who has a heart of gold that can only be discovered by chance, and of her gentle foster father Hans, the accordion player. It is the story of the Jewish boxer Max, a fanatic German and a hostile betrayer. And that of Rudi, Liesel’s friend, the boy with the lemon-yellow hair. Of his dreams, his fearless courage and a kiss. It is a story of friendship, civil courage and hope in dark times. Of the happiness that so deeply touches the heart like pain. It is a story of the power of love, the power of words and of death, which also has a heart.