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Examples Of Discrimination In The Book Thief

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Segregation, isolation, and discrimination. History continues to run through cycle of altercations and clashes, but it seems that not many people take the information they need to stop it. For instance, throughout the early 1900’s in the U.S, African Americans were considered “separate but equal”, limited to separate bathrooms, classrooms, and other everyday locations. They were thought of as less than everyone else because of the color of their skin and left as victims to violence, prejudice, and other acts of oppression until the Civil Rights Movement took its toll. Like African-Americans, many Germans discriminated the Jewish population, but being a Jew had more extreme consequences. During the Holocaust in the 1930’s and 1940’s, roughly six million Jews were murdered , herded off into concentration and death camps, where thoughts of mortality had become an unwanted reality under Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler. …show more content…

Minorities were killed and mistreated, stripped of their possessions and treated as inhuman, as a total of eleven million people were killed. Similarly, in The Book Thief, by Mark Zusak, one German family takes in a Jewish man, caring for him and hiding him in their basement. Forced to keep their secret or face death, they rise above others by having the courage to aid a Jew when it can cost them their lives. As numerous varieties of personality and status do exist, like the shy, the social, the minorities, and the majorities, few have the audacity to overcome fear and reveal their true courage and humanity. Those such as Irena Sendler, Hans Hubermann, and Martin Luther King Jr. demonstrate that one who takes risks will accomplish much more than one who does

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