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Examples Of Thievery In The Book Thief

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If it came down to it, would it make sense for one to steal something for their survival? What if it was only for the betterment of oneself? How about if one did not care or even fully realize what they were doing? Would all of these still be considered thievery? Questions like these have the power to shroud opinions about what is defined as right and wrong. These certain questions are able to challenge people on their take of the difference between stealing for survival and stealing for greed. Ideas like these, revolving around the rightness of thievery, present themselves many times throughout The Book Thief, written by Markus Zusak. This novel follows the life of the main character Liesel Meminger as she adapts to her new life while trying …show more content…
A key part of The Book Thief is how the Nazis are terrorizing people such as jews, political opposers, or people of color. This leads into the idea of how the Nazis are stealing the humanity, lives, and families from many characters in the story. There were many place holding characters that seemed as though they have lost all human decentity, “Max, with the rest of the Jews, was steadily rejected and repeatedly trodden”(Zusak 192). This line clearly infers that Max, a jew, was starting to get outcasted from society. This is exactly where thievery is involved, there are people in the story who have started to deprive others of their basic human rights. While some of these characters might not know what they are fully doing, this is an action that is not ignored as thievery. The lives of many people were also stolen. From wars to concentration camps, many unnecessary lives were stolen throughout the story. Death brings mention to this, “There was, of course, the matter of forty million people I picked up by the time the whole thing was finished…”(Zusak 112). Over the course of forty million people, approximately three million of them were people who would have been applicable for concentration camps. The Nazis stole the lives of millions of people in attempt to have their “perfect world.” The lives stolen from the Nazis were had very hard effects on the families of the dead; That is, if that was not already stolen. During this time, families were broken apart because of different members taking sides on the matter. When it came to the Hubermanns, this was the case between Hans and his son. “‘You’re either for the Fübrer or against him-and I can see you’re against him. You always have been’...watching a father grab hold of his son and begging him to stop…’Come back!’ The boy was gone”(Zusak 105,106). While the novel did include that Hans and his son have

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