Book Thief Death Quotes

World War II is known worldwide as the bloodiest war in history, taking more than 60 million lives around the world. For anyone living in Germany during the time of war, especially those associated with Jews, it was an extremely dangerous period. For Liesel Meminger and her foster family, life had never been more risky than during the times that they had a Jew hidden in their basement during World War II. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak is an emotional story about how a young girl growing up in Germany is affected in many ways by the war, and how she finds comfort in reading stolen books. As Liesel Meminger is growing up in Molching, Germany in the midst of World War II, she finds herself surrounded by death. Living with her foster parents

During this time millions of people were dying throughout the world, especially in Germany. To start, the timing of the story assists the theme because of how much Hitler has Death at work. Looking at page 491 in the text, the last paragraph reads, “It’s probably fair to say that in all the years of Hitler’s reign, no person was able to serve the Führer as loyally as me.” In this quote, “Death” is commenting about how it is working for Hitler in collecting the souls of the dead. Had it not been World War II during the time that Liesel was growing up, Death in all probability would not have been as busy as it was, and some of the key events in the story would not have played out the same way. Another factor of the setting that adds to the mortality theme is the place where Liesel grew up, in Molching Germany. Had Liesel not grown up in Molching, her life most presumably would have been completely different. A specific description of Liesel’s foster family’s location can be found early in the text, where the author depicts, “Quite a way beyond the outskirts of Munich, there was a town called Molching,” (Page 26). In World War II, it is commonly known that there was a high concentration of Hitler supporters, which made things riskier for individuals and families that were against Hitler, such as Liesel’s foster family. Because of the risks of