Who Is The Truth In Bartoletti's The Boy Who Dared?

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Susan Campbell Bartoletti’s historical fiction novel, The Boy Who Dared, takes place in Germany, World War II, during Hitler's rule. Helmuth, the main character, believes in an idea that no one else dares to think. As a German believing that the Nazis are wrong can get Helmuth punished or even worse... And yet Helmuth chooses to share the truth. The lesson the story teaches is that sometimes the truth is dangerous. The first pieces of evidence state that the truth could hurt the people around you or the ones you care about. Helmuth risked his loved ones by trying to spread the truth about the horrors of the Nazis. In one part of the book, Karl was out passing pamphlets in the streets when he was stopped by two officers, the book reads, “The …show more content…

Throughout the book the society went against Helmuth, rather if they were just too afraid to help Helmuth or they down right wanted him stopped. The book’s, first, and biggest example of someone who wanted to stop Helmuth were the Nazis, Helmuth describes the Nazis, “I despise the Nazis. I hate the way they bully people. I hate the way they lie to us. And I hate them telling me what to think.” page 121. Helmuth learns about how the Nazis beat and kill those that want to spread the truth, and although it angers and scares him it still doesn’t stop him from spreading the truth. This leads to my next quote, on page 133, Brother Worbs returns beaten and broken. He tells Helmuth how he was taken and tortured, “The Nazis are monsters. How can they get away with torture?” At the beginning of the book, Brother Worbs prayed to god to rid of the Nazis and their horrible actions and now he is found broken and miserable, all because he decided to tell the truth. Certainly, it could be said, that Brother Worbs did the right thing even though there were punishments, while this is a good point, it fails to account for that it benefited no one. Even after Brother Worbs’s statement, the society didn’t change, instead, Brother Worbs was punished and almost killed. This was also the same with Helmuth, he died trying the do the right thing, and yet, most of the society decided to do nothing. So the Nazis continued to terrorize people for years until they were finally