Evidence In The Book Thief

Law, a system that is established by the government that determines what is right and what is wrong; crime or virtue, is authorized for a better society. When someone commits a crime, they are then to face the consequences of it, or meet punishment. Markus Zusak’s novel, The Book Thief, is a memoir that has many instances that exemplify crimes being executed. These crimes consisted of being a member of the Jewish population, attempting to help the Jewish people, and going against the government. Nazi-occupied Germany enacted many of these new laws for a "better" society. However, evidence in The Book Thief suggests that these laws are not just. This idea proposes that the law is not always righteous, as the government could go corrupt at any

The Jewish are to suffer alone, and alone only; if someone were to give an ounce of sympathy to any one of them, it deemed them to be criminals as well. An example of this is when Hans, the main character’s father, decides to help a Jewish man through their humiliation by painting over the slurs written on their door, however, “Everyone knew you weren’t supposed to paint over slurs written on a Jewish shop front” (Zusak 104). “Everyone”, a crime so great that everyone knows of it. Murder, theft, fraud, the other many crimes that everyone knows about, yet saving an individual that is about to lose sight of themselves is also a crime. This was more than evidence of how ludicrous those “crimes” are. These twisted truths of crime were what plagued Germany, and Hitler was the beginning of it. Hans Hubermann and his family hid a Jewish boy knowing these truths, as they were aware that if they had not attempted to help, the boy would have died at the hands of the Nazis. The family took upon this crime for the benefit of another and has done so despite knowing that they are paying for a life with their own, in addition to the risk of losing it all. This is because if, “[They] hide a Jew. [They] Pay. Somehow or other, [they] must.” (Zusak 258) This is a crime so great that despite being seized by the Nazis or not, the guilt and fear of committing the crime would engulf someone one way or another. This is the world that the Nazis pushed onto Germany and most of Europe, the type of world that made the immoral moral, and the moral immoral. These crimes that Hitler believes to be crimes hold no weight, as when the suggestion of life and death comes to play, and death is the one chosen as the “good”, there is no argument, especially when there is no plausible reason for