Whispered Words

I am currently reading the book, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. It takes place during the time of the holocaust. It is about a German girl, named Liesel, growing up in a pro-Hitler community, but with an anti-Hitler family. In the beginning, her father, Hans Hubberman, does not really feel either way. He does not mind the Jews, but he does not completely hate Hitler. Since even being in neutral could get you in trouble, he just does not say anything. Towards the middle of the book, Hans decides to hide a Jew, named Max, in their basement as a favor to Max’s father. As time goes on, Liesel starts to view Max as a brother, and she cannot understand why Hitler is determined to rid the world of Jews, when they are obviously not bad people.

If Liesel’s father had not openly showed Liesel that the Jews are not bad, but it is Hitler that needed to be stopped, then she would have grown up pro-Hitler. Even though there were families and different people that were not entirely for Hitler, they all kept quiet and said nothing.

I think that when a powerful leader or an authority figure says or does something, many people will follow them without question, and if only a few people question or disagree with their motives or their beliefs, those people are often discriminated against. Often no one will say anything because they are afraid no one will support them. But actually, there are probably many people out there that also agree with you, but are also afraid that no one will back them up if they speak out.

One day, a large group of Jews are being paraded through the town and Hans Hubberman gives one starving old man some bread. In this brief period of time, you start to see that not all the people that are completely pro-Hitler and anti-Jew.

“They called him a Jew lover. Others were silent, helping him back to safety.” This quote shows that even though some people were opposed by him, there were others who helped him and, though they were not loud, they did disagree with the others.

I think that even when a large crowd of people think or believe something, you should always speak up about what you think, and not just let everyone else’s voices roll over you. If you never voice your own opinions you will never get used to speaking up and you will instead end up always letting others do the talking. You may have very important things to say, and others will probably listen to you, but unless you say something, you never know what could have happened.