Amazon.ca describes this book as a "dark and powerfully absorbing novel, brilliantly executed". It's narrator calls it "just as small story, really." Jump in with both feet and surrender to one of the most gripping, unusual, hilarious books I've read in years. It's a book about books, about hate, about love, and about how words can be our most powerful weapons.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
History
The novel is woven across a series of actual events. What can you find out about these historical events? Are they depicted accurately? Be sure to indicate the source of your information.
I was a bit confused about what Kristallnacht was (mentioned page 192) as I had never heard of it before , so I did some research. In english, it means "The Night of Broken Glass" and occured over November 9 and 10, 1938 just like the book said. Basically, it was a pogrom (an organized massacre) launched by Joseph Goebbels against all Jews. This pogrom was sparked and excused by an assassination on Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath (a German official) by a 17-year-old Jewish boy in Paris who had heard how his family was being treated back in Germany and wanted payback. On those nights, mobs throughout Germany and newly acquired territories of Austria and Sudetenland attacked Jews on the streets, in their homes, at their workplaces, and places of worship. As a result almost 100 Jews were killed, hundreds injured, and more than 1,000 synagogues were burned. German officials claimed- although they were clearly organized by Goebbels- that these attacks were spontaneous outbursts. Goebbels told Party officials in Munich that Hitler "has decided that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either." sources: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/kristallnacht.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
Oh right now i remember that from last year actually learning about the holocaust. I also couldnt remember though what it meant. That is very helpful! It makes alot more sense know.
I also forgot what it meant, because I learnt about the holocaust a few years ago and it must have slipped my mind. Reading what you wrote for sure helped me remember so thank you!
Throughout reading the book, I noticed they talked a lot about sopmething called Hitler Youth. I knew Liesel was apart of this organization but I wasnt too sure about the history behind it and since the book hasnt gone into great detail about this, I wanted to find out more. Hitler Youth- also known as HJ (Hitler-Jugend) started in 1922 and lasted until 1945. It was a program for young Germans. It had different sections for Girls, usually 10-14 and boys 10-18. There is also different branches. The purpose of the groups were for nazi support, but more specificaly for boys to train to join the military. The women were taught to learn values, obedience, disipline etc. They were also taught how to prepare for motherhood and instill the values they were taught, on their children. source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitleryouth.html
I was very interested by the fact that the Hubermanns took Max Vanderburg in even though it was a threat to their own safety and well-being. I know that Hans Hubermann did it because he promised Max’s father that he would but it is such a big sacrifice to make, so I decided to do a little digging on the history behind people who actually took Jewish people in during the Holocaust and I found some points in this link very informative. http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/rescuers-article.html
i did a bit of research on the one of the books that Liesel came into contact with and it turns out that the book "Mein Kampf" was actually a book written by Hitler himself. here is a site where i found a synopsis of the book -- http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERmein.htm
Thanks Ally, I had an idea of what Hitler Youth was just from the name, but that cleared up a lot of the details for me. It's messed up that they would take 10 to 14 year-old girls and start teaching them values to instill in their children in motherhood. I'm 16 and I still never think about motherhood. It makes me feel bad that they were surrounded by this Nazi garbage everywhere they went, and tried to incorporate Nazi ideals into every part of German citizens lives.
I was curious of what the setting of the Book Thief looked like so I looked up the town of Molching,Germany and I was surprised to find out that it was a fictional town made up for the book but Munich,Germany which is also mentioned in the book is a real city in Germany. Here is the link where I found the information on the setting.
bund deutscher madchen is the real name for the nazi youth group. bund deutscher madchen translates to league of german girls this league was split up into 3 sections: The young girls league girls age 10-14, The league proper for girls age 14-18. In 1938 a third section was introduced " The Belief and beauty group" which was voluntary and open to girls between the ages 17-21 .
This is the link to where i found this information:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_German_Girls
While I was reading the book I began to wonder, do the Germans know what is going on in the concentration camps? do they really know what Hitler is doing? I did some research and I found my answers. Some people said most of the Germans knew what was going on, unless they lived in an area without any Jewish people. Although some Germans thought that their Jewish neighbours were being resettled In Eastern Europe. Germans did know that there was something going on because Hitler would talk about it, and they would read about it in the newspaper. But what I really found out is that Germans knew that there were concentration camps and labor camps but they did not exactly know everything that was going on in them. There were Germans every where around where the Nazi's would take the Jews so there were witnesses. But the Nazi's would simply say, we are relocating. So the Germans would then leave them alone. But it was hard for the Nazi's to keep the holocaust a secret because if the Jews were taken away from their home and never brought back. People would get suspicious. Germans were either to frightened to find out more information about the camps, because they Nazi's would kill them if they knew what they were doing. Or the Germans simply just didn't care enough to find out what was going on.
The town square book burnings did not just consist of random books,the books that were burned were books that were banned by hitler. The books that were banned by hitler were about why war is bad and why we should stop hitler banned the books so that people would not uncover what he was doing . Hitler made book burnings all through germany to rid people of what hitler thought to be a threat to himself and the nazi party.
I found this info from this link http://eng1d1.wikidot.com/forum/t-208044/books-behind-book-burnings
"The destruction of the weak and sick is far more humane than their protection." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.
I think that this line from Hitler's Autobiography is rather interesting. Two years ago, in English class we read a book called "The Giver", about a race of people that lived in a perfect Utopia, where everything was perfect and exact and anyone who was even the slightest bit imperfect was taken away and killed. In the story, the main character discovered that there was so much more to life when you decided for yourself to step outside the limits and choose to be different. I think that if Hitler had his way and the entire world was strictly disciplined, the earth would be a much less interesting place. Hitler himself was a Catholic, a denomination of Christianity. One of the main themes of Christianity is free will. In the first book of the bible, Genesis; Christians (including Catholics) believe God created the first humans Adam and Eve. God loved them so much that they were given the option of free will, to live how they wanted to, despite the fact that they were created to worship him. In my opinion, Adolf Hitler is a hypocrite, taking away the free will from the entire country of Germany.
Since the book is in the time of the Holocaust, I decided to do some research on Hitler. He was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria. He was was born on April 20th, 1889. When he was young he was described as a resentful, discontented child. Who was moody, lazy, temperamental, he was hostile towards his father and strongly attached to his mother who died in December 1908. When he was young, he wanted to be a painter. He believed that Jewish people were responsible for all of Germany's domestic problems. The day before him and his wife committed suicide they got married. He shot himself through the mouth with a pistol and then they burned together.
As I read The Book Thief, the Jewish people on their way to Dachau came up a few times, so I was curious to learn more about this place. The novel stated it was a concentration camp, but what it neglected to say about Dachau was that it was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany.The camp was divided into two sections: the camp area and the crematoria area. The camp area was made of 32 barracks, including one for people imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments (malaria and tuberculosis experiments, hypothermia experiments, experiments testing new medications, experiments testing methods of making seawater drinkable, experients testing how to best halt excessive bleeding, etc.) and hundreds of prisoners died or were permanently disabled as a result of these experiments. In 1942 a gas chamber was built and although there is no evidence that this chamber was used for the mass murder of prisoners it's rumoured that prisoners were put through a selection process and those least healthy/fit to work were killed in the chamber.Dachau prisoners were used as forced labourers.
I was interested in finding out more about air raid shelters that were used in World War II. The one explained in the book is a basement of someone who lives on Himmel street, but also in the War they had actual air raid shelters that were almost like caves that not only citizens would hide in, also military personal would head for cover in the same shelter aswell. To find out more click the link below.
I also was interested in knowing exactly what was in Hitler and the Nazi party groups book "Mein Kampf (My Struggle)." I researched this and found out it was an autobiography of his life. Also an interesting fact is Hitlers book was actually popular and earned him 8 Million dollars in sales. To learn more about the book click the link below.
Wow, that's a lot of sales Riley. Interesting that, Hitler is remembered as such a terrible person now, but at the time, he was loved by many. He was a symbol of hope for germany to get out of the debt that they earned from World War 1. He was even voted "Man of the Year" in Time magazine.
Here's a link to the cover: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.telovation.com/photos/time-magazine-cover-hitler-man-of-the-year.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.telovation.com/categories/scary.html&usg=__7jJhMieWYxdq2isJUks8FMMNZx0=&h=400&w=400&sz=36&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=GIHmpkYRQ6b6kM:&tbnh=131&tbnw=137&ei=LA7MTcTsOIKKvgOi4YWQBQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhitler%2Bman%2Bof%2Bthe%2Byear%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26host%3Dwww.google.com%26biw%3D964%26bih%3D557%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=259&vpy=69&dur=560&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=142&ty=107&page=1&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0
That is interesting Reid, I was surprised that Hitler was so popular and not only was he voted the man of the year but when the a British Diplomat went over seas with to meet with him he came back and was so happy with Hitler's during his meeting that when he came back he compared Hitler to Ghandi. The British Diplomat was not the only one impressed by Hitler when Canadian Primeminister William King met with Hitler he said that "He smiled very pleasantly, and indeed had a sort of appealing and affectionate look in his eyes. My sizing up of the man as I sat and talked with him was that he is really one who truly loves his fellow man and his country ... his eyes impressed me most of all. There was a liquid quality about them which indicated keen perception and profound sympathy and one could see how particularly humble folk would come to have a profound love for the man."
I found some history on the Swastika. It turns out that it is actually a very common symbol in religions like Hindu and Buddism and other Indian Religions to this day. Hitler used this symbol though in the war. When the Swastika is seen now in the Western Hemisphere it is automatically connected with racism.
I have also found infromation on the "Heil Hitler" when saying this phrase you would raise your arm fully out extended forward in the air diagonally. This meant you were greeting someone, it also meant hail victory. Somethings you probably didn't know about the salute: It was first used by the Ancient Romans. It has been banned globally, and in most countries is a federal offence. It was not always a bad thing, until Hitler adopted it into the Nazi Germans culture.
I was reading what had been posted about the book burnings, and decided to look into it a bit more. It's hard to say how many books were banned, because there were many different groups involved in making lists of "inappropriate" literature, but what I could find out was that there were over 4,000 titles banned from libraries by 1934. The banning went on for several years after that too! I found out that some of the guidelines for banned literature were books on other religions, books about sexual education that "destroy the principles of race", and anything written by a ajewish person. I found this site that has a few articles explaining theses guidelines in more detail, as well as a list of banned authors.
I understood that Stalingrad was a battle that Germany had with Russia, but I didn't completely understand its significance. It took place between during the winter from 1942 to 1943, as the book mentioned, and was remembered for its brutality, bloodiness and disregard for casualties (both military and civilian). The higher of estimates for combined casualties nears two million people. Many historians see this battle as a turning point in World War II, as after it the German Army was put in full retreat, an entire German army group was lost, and 91000 Germans were taken prisoner.
I was also curious about whether Molching is a real town or not, and of course found that it wasn't. I found that the the town in the story is named after Olching, Germany and is close to Dachau an 20 km away from Munich. The Amper is real and runs along the West side of Olching.
While I was wondering whether Molching was real, I also wondered if the dates of the bombings were true. It turns out there were bomobings in Germany on those dates, however, not nessesarily near Olching. The dates used in the book seem to relate to bombings in the German industrial town of Essen, according to the webpage I used. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich#World_War_I_to_World_War_II
Thats very interesting Riley. I researched Hitler a little bit and he was actually very popular. He was actually praised by a British Diplomat who actually compared Hitler to Ghandi. He was also praised by the Canadian Prime minister of the time William King. He wrote in his journal about his meeting with Hitler and he said "My sizing up of the man as I sat and talked with him was that he is really one who truly loves his fellow-men, and his country, and would make any sacrifice for their good." (Diary, June 29, 1937) Hitler appeared to be "a man of deep sincerity and a genuine patriot." (Diary, June 29, 1937) King saw similarities between himself and Hitler, writing, "As I talked with him, I could not but think of Joan of Arc. He is distinctly a mystic .... He is a teetotaller and also a vegetarian; is unmarried, abstemist in all his habits and ways." (Diary, June 29, 1937)"
Good point kyle, it's interesting and hard to believe how he got a large part of the population of, not only Germany, but of Europe and the rest of the world, to respect and believe in him. So much so, that Time magazine named him 'Man of the Year' in 1938.** The poor German population of the late 1930s were willing to believe in anyone that assured them that they would be able to pull them out of their enormous debt and make them a prosperous country again after the toll that the first world war took on them.
**Here's a picture of the cover of Adolf Hitler's 'Time magazine': http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.didyouknowthat.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/hitler-Time-man-of-the-year.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.didyouknowthat.net/hitler-was-voted-time-magazines-man-of-the-year-in-1938/2010/12/28/&usg=__Dcs5B4E0ZZIi8LTD-eqM1_tgEMs=&h=527&w=400&sz=30&hl=en&start=0&sig2=-hsfqeCBbax2HaMyYX3vkw&zoom=1&tbnid=JtNEnLY6ouF3lM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=88&ei=CdvRTYWzBY6-sAPN09y2CQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtime%2Bhitler%2Bman%2Bof%2Bthe%2Byear%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D521%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=315&vpy=37&dur=1052&hovh=258&hovw=196&tx=121&ty=140&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0
Wow Schylar that information makes a lot of sense of why Hitler acted the way he did when he was older.It's interesting to know the past of a very very bad man. To know that they were a child once and they had dreams etc.
Thanks for that background on the "Heil Hitler". I did not know most of that information. I knew the Sawstika was adopted by Germans from other uses but it never occured to me that the "salute" was as well.
When I was reading I was really interested in finding out about Dachau and what it really was. So I did some research and found out that Dachau was a place where Jewish people went. Located in Dachau (hence the name) It was a concentration camp specifically for Jewish men that was brutal and known for its cruelty. During the first year that it was made, the camp had 4,800 prisoners and by the 1937, it already held 13,260 prisoners. When the war began the number of prisoners rose to 10,000, all men. The camp itself was divided into two sections, the camp area and crematoria. The men that were prisoned were forced to work and a lot of labor was involved. During the war thousands of prisoners worked until they died. For me personally, I think this sort of punishment was extremely harsh, I think it must've have been really hard on the family members who were sent here because they knew from stories and from their own experiences that it wasn't a happy place to go. For example for Liesel, it also must have been hard because she knew what they did to the men at the camp, and there was always the constant worry that the person might die, or never return.
I have always wanted to know what would happen to people that were put into concentration camp. I found out that there are different types of camps that many Jewish people were sent off too. There are Concentration Camps that where they were forced to go through labour until death inflicted by over-exhaustion, starvation, or diseases from poor conditions. There are also Extermination Camps where people were forced into a freight train, once arrived, slaves were then told to remove everything (clothes, shoes.. if they owned any) and were crowded into a small room, where the Nazi's would then lock the door, and then gas everyone in the room. The dead bodies were then removed from the rooms, and burned. But what I found very surprising was that there were Medical Experiments Camps where some forms of medical torture were when Nazi's placed subjects in pressure chambers, froze them, tried to change the colour of children’s eyes by injecting chemicals into the pupil, and testing drugs on them. It's just super sad that many children and everybody else had to go through such torture.
This website that I have found shows the differences between the Nazi times in Munich and the modern times right now. I was very curious about how Munich was affected by the Nazi invasion. Most of the historical building that used to display any loyalty to being a Nazi member, are still there but modernized and Nazi free.
Wow, Rudy really enjoys the image of Jesse Owens because the character was written to know all about him. I really didn’t know anything about this persona and was curious if all the facts about Jesse and Hitler in the book were right. So I did a little snooping and found an almost mirror statement as in the book. It said that Jesse Owens was an American Track and Field athlete born on September 12 1913. During the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, he won four gold medals, just as Rudy kept on mentioning. One in the 100 meters, one in the 200 meters, one in long jump and the last as part of the 4x100 meter relay team. When Adidas decided to sponsor Owens it was the first time an African-American male athlete had been sponsored, no wonder Rudy was so inspired. On day, Hitler only shook hands with the German Medalists but he was told he had to shake hands with all medalists or none at all. He decided to not shake any hands at all and refused to shake Owens’s hand. Jesse Owens died March 31 1980.
While I was reading the book a lot of the facts and events that were being mention at time confused and didn’t make sense especially what happen when. I really wanted to find a time line of the war that would help me understand not only how Himmel Street was affected but the world in a way. I really wanted to find a time line between the actually times in the book, from 1939 to 1943. Important events that happened during 1939, beginning with the start of World War 2 September 1 1939: • September 1 - Germany invades Poland • September 3 - Great Britain and France declared war on Germany in support of their ally Poland • September 17 - Soviet Union invades Poland • September 28 - Germany reaches Warsaw, Poland
1940 is when there started to be really big battles and Britain and her commonwealth stood alone against Germany and Italy. Here are key events that happened that year. • May 7 - Churchill becomes Britain’s prime minister • May 10 - Germany invades Holland, Luxemburg and Belgium • May 14 - Germany breaks through French defenses • May 28 - Belgium surrenders • June 10 - Italy declares war on Britain and France • June 14 - Germans enter Paris • June 22 - France surrenders • Aug-Sept - British Royal Air Force defeats Germans in the Battle of Britain • September 27 - Japan joins axis powers (Germany and Italy) • November 26 - Work starts on Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland • December 9 - British begin Operation Compass in North Africa
During 1941 two key allied nations were brought in to the war; the Russians and the Americans. Here are some of the highlights of 1941: • February 5-7 - British and British commonwealth troops defeat the Italian tenth army at Beda Fomm • Feb-March - German Africa corps land in North Africa to support Italians, they open successful counter offensive • April 13 - Japan and Russia sign non aggression treaty • June 22 - Germany invades Russia bringing Russia in to the war • September 3 - German troops reach outskirts of Leningrad, Russia • October 25 - German offensive against Moscow is stopped • December 7 - Pearl Harbor is bombed by Japan • December 8 - USA and Britain declare war on Japan • December 11 - Germany and Italy declare war on USA
1942 was the year that the tide started to change from total German victory to the Allies starting to win more battles. Here is a list of the most important events that year. • January 20 - Wannsee conference adopts "Final Solution" - the mass extermination of the Jews - SS General Reinhard Heydrich made administrator • January 31 - Singapore falls to Japanese • April 18 - Doolittle raid on Tokyo, Japan by US bombers • May 7-8 - Battle of Coral Sea (USA vs. Japan) • May 30-31 - Cologne is first German city to be attacked in a 1000 bomber raid • June 4-5 - Battle of Midway, all 4 Japanese carriers sunk • September 13 - Germans launch main attack on Stalingrad, Russia • October 23 - Battle of El Alamein, followed by Axis withdraw across North Africa and in to Tunisia • November 8 - Operation Torch - Allied landings in North Africa • November 12 - Battle for Guadalcanal begins • November 19 - Russian winter offensive surrounds German troops in Stalingrad, Russia
1943: • January 31 - Von Paulus surrenders German forces at Stalingrad • Feb - May - Heavy bombing raids on German cities, particularly Essen, Berlin, Duisburg and the Ruhr • April 19 - SS troops massacre Polish Jews after ghetto rebels • May 12 - German and Italian troops surrender in North Africa • July 4 - 13 Germans attack at Kursk - largest tank battle of the war • July 10 - Operation Huskey - Allies land in Sicily • July 25 - Mussolini falls from power • September 3 - 9 Operations Baytown, Slapstick and Avalanche - allies invade Italy • October 13 Italian government switches sides
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ReplyDeleteI was a bit confused about what Kristallnacht was (mentioned page 192) as I had never heard of it before , so I did some research. In english, it means "The Night of Broken Glass" and occured over November 9 and 10, 1938 just like the book said. Basically, it was a pogrom (an organized massacre) launched by Joseph Goebbels against all Jews. This pogrom was sparked and excused by an assassination on Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath (a German official) by a 17-year-old Jewish boy in Paris who had heard how his family was being treated back in Germany and wanted payback. On those nights, mobs throughout Germany and newly acquired territories of Austria and Sudetenland attacked Jews on the streets, in their homes, at their workplaces, and places of worship. As a result almost 100 Jews were killed, hundreds injured, and more than 1,000 synagogues were burned. German officials claimed- although they were clearly organized by Goebbels- that these attacks were spontaneous outbursts. Goebbels told Party officials in Munich that Hitler "has decided that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either."
ReplyDeletesources: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/kristallnacht.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht
Oh right now i remember that from last year actually learning about the holocaust. I also couldnt remember though what it meant. That is very helpful! It makes alot more sense know.
ReplyDeleteI also forgot what it meant, because I learnt about the holocaust a few years ago and it must have slipped my mind. Reading what you wrote for sure helped me remember so thank you!
ReplyDeleteI already knew what it was but having you explain it like this really helped me to understand it much better than i did before.
ReplyDeleteThroughout reading the book, I noticed they talked a lot about sopmething called Hitler Youth. I knew Liesel was apart of this organization but I wasnt too sure about the history behind it and since the book hasnt gone into great detail about this, I wanted to find out more.
ReplyDeleteHitler Youth- also known as HJ (Hitler-Jugend) started in 1922 and lasted until 1945. It was a program for young Germans. It had different sections for Girls, usually 10-14 and boys 10-18. There is also different branches. The purpose of the groups were for nazi support, but more specificaly for boys to train to join the military. The women were taught to learn values, obedience, disipline etc. They were also taught how to prepare for motherhood and instill the values they were taught, on their children.
source:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitleryouth.html
I was very interested by the fact that the Hubermanns took Max Vanderburg in even though it was a threat to their own safety and well-being. I know that Hans Hubermann did it because he promised Max’s father that he would but it is such a big sacrifice to make, so I decided to do a little digging on the history behind people who actually took Jewish people in during the Holocaust and I found some points in this link very informative.
ReplyDeletehttp://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/rescuers-article.html
i did a bit of research on the one of the books that Liesel came into contact with and it turns out that the book "Mein Kampf" was actually a book written by Hitler himself.
ReplyDeletehere is a site where i found a synopsis of the book -- http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERmein.htm
Thanks Ally, I had an idea of what Hitler Youth was just from the name, but that cleared up a lot of the details for me. It's messed up that they would take 10 to 14 year-old girls and start teaching them values to instill in their children in motherhood. I'm 16 and I still never think about motherhood. It makes me feel bad that they were surrounded by this Nazi garbage everywhere they went, and tried to incorporate Nazi ideals into every part of German citizens lives.
ReplyDeleteI was curious of what the setting of the Book Thief looked like so I looked up the town of Molching,Germany and I was surprised to find out that it was a fictional town made up for the book but Munich,Germany which is also mentioned in the book is a real city in Germany. Here is the link where I found the information on the setting.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.shmoop.com/book-thief/setting.html
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletebund deutscher madchen is the real name for the nazi youth group. bund deutscher madchen translates to league of german girls this league was split up into 3 sections: The young girls league girls age 10-14, The league proper for girls age 14-18. In 1938 a third section was introduced " The Belief and beauty group" which was voluntary and open to girls between the ages 17-21 .
ReplyDeleteThis is the link to where i found this information:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_German_Girls
While I was reading the book I began to wonder, do the Germans know what is going on in the concentration camps? do they really know what Hitler is doing? I did some research and I found my answers.
ReplyDeleteSome people said most of the Germans knew what was going on, unless they lived in an area without any Jewish people. Although some Germans thought that their Jewish neighbours were being resettled In Eastern Europe. Germans did know that there was something going on because Hitler would talk about it, and they would read about it in the newspaper. But what I really found out is that Germans knew that there were concentration camps and labor camps but they did not exactly know everything that was going on in them. There were Germans every where around where the Nazi's would take the Jews so there were witnesses. But the Nazi's would simply say, we are relocating. So the Germans would then leave them alone. But it was hard for the Nazi's to keep the holocaust a secret because if the Jews were taken away from their home and never brought back. People would get suspicious. Germans were either to frightened to find out more information about the camps, because they Nazi's would kill them if they knew what they were doing. Or the Germans simply just didn't care enough to find out what was going on.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_did_the_Germans_know_about_the_Holocaust
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/feb/17/johnezard
The town square book burnings did not just consist of random books,the books that were burned were books that were banned by hitler. The books that were banned by hitler were about why war is bad and why we should stop hitler banned the books so that people would not uncover what he was doing . Hitler made book burnings all through germany to rid people of what hitler thought to be a threat to himself and the nazi party.
ReplyDeleteI found this info from this link
http://eng1d1.wikidot.com/forum/t-208044/books-behind-book-burnings
"The destruction of the weak and sick is far more humane than their protection." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.
ReplyDeleteI think that this line from Hitler's Autobiography is rather interesting. Two years ago, in English class we read a book called "The Giver", about a race of people that lived in a perfect Utopia, where everything was perfect and exact and anyone who was even the slightest bit imperfect was taken away and killed. In the story, the main character discovered that there was so much more to life when you decided for yourself to step outside the limits and choose to be different.
I think that if Hitler had his way and the entire world was strictly disciplined, the earth would be a much less interesting place. Hitler himself was a Catholic, a denomination of Christianity. One of the main themes of Christianity is free will. In the first book of the bible, Genesis; Christians (including Catholics) believe God created the first humans Adam and Eve. God loved them so much that they were given the option of free will, to live how they wanted to, despite the fact that they were created to worship him.
In my opinion, Adolf Hitler is a hypocrite, taking away the free will from the entire country of Germany.
sources : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_views
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler
Since the book is in the time of the Holocaust, I decided to do some research on Hitler. He was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria. He was was born on April 20th, 1889. When he was young he was described as a resentful, discontented child. Who was moody, lazy, temperamental, he was hostile towards his father and strongly attached to his mother who died in December 1908. When he was young, he wanted to be a painter. He believed that Jewish people were responsible for all of Germany's domestic problems. The day before him and his wife committed suicide they got married. He shot himself through the mouth with a pistol and then they burned together.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.html
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ReplyDeleteAs I read The Book Thief, the Jewish people on their way to Dachau came up a few times, so I was curious to learn more about this place. The novel stated it was a concentration camp, but what it neglected to say about Dachau was that it was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany.The camp was divided into two sections: the camp area and the crematoria area. The camp area was made of 32 barracks, including one for people imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments (malaria and tuberculosis experiments, hypothermia experiments, experiments testing new medications, experiments testing methods of making seawater drinkable, experients testing how to best halt excessive bleeding, etc.) and hundreds of prisoners died or were permanently disabled as a result of these experiments. In 1942 a gas chamber was built and although there is no evidence that this chamber was used for the mass murder of prisoners it's rumoured that prisoners were put through a selection process and those least healthy/fit to work were killed in the chamber.Dachau prisoners were used as forced labourers.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005214
I was interested in finding out more about air raid shelters that were used in World War II. The one explained in the book is a basement of someone who lives on Himmel street, but also in the War they had actual air raid shelters that were almost like caves that not only citizens would hide in, also military personal would head for cover in the same shelter aswell. To find out more click the link below.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-raid_shelter
I also was interested in knowing exactly what was in Hitler and the Nazi party groups book "Mein Kampf (My Struggle)." I researched this and found out it was an autobiography of his life. Also an interesting fact is Hitlers book was actually popular and earned him 8 Million dollars in sales. To learn more about the book click the link below.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf#Contents
Wow, that's a lot of sales Riley. Interesting that, Hitler is remembered as such a terrible person now, but at the time, he was loved by many. He was a symbol of hope for germany to get out of the debt that they earned from World War 1. He was even voted "Man of the Year" in Time magazine.
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to the cover:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.telovation.com/photos/time-magazine-cover-hitler-man-of-the-year.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.telovation.com/categories/scary.html&usg=__7jJhMieWYxdq2isJUks8FMMNZx0=&h=400&w=400&sz=36&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=GIHmpkYRQ6b6kM:&tbnh=131&tbnw=137&ei=LA7MTcTsOIKKvgOi4YWQBQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhitler%2Bman%2Bof%2Bthe%2Byear%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26host%3Dwww.google.com%26biw%3D964%26bih%3D557%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=259&vpy=69&dur=560&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=142&ty=107&page=1&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0
That is interesting Reid, I was surprised that Hitler was so popular and not only was he voted the man of the year but when the a British Diplomat went over seas with to meet with him he came back and was so happy with Hitler's during his meeting that when he came back he compared Hitler to Ghandi. The British Diplomat was not the only one impressed by Hitler when Canadian Primeminister William King met with Hitler he said that "He smiled very pleasantly, and indeed had a sort of appealing and affectionate look in his eyes. My sizing up of the man as I sat and talked with him was that he is really one who truly loves his fellow man and his country ... his eyes impressed me most of all. There was a liquid quality about them which indicated keen perception and profound sympathy and one could see how particularly humble folk would come to have a profound love for the man."
ReplyDeleteI found some history on the Swastika. It turns out that it is actually a very common symbol in religions like Hindu and Buddism and other Indian Religions to this day. Hitler used this symbol though in the war. When the Swastika is seen now in the Western Hemisphere it is automatically connected with racism.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
I have also found infromation on the "Heil Hitler" when saying this phrase you would raise your arm fully out extended forward in the air diagonally. This meant you were greeting someone, it also meant hail victory. Somethings you probably didn't know about the salute:
ReplyDeleteIt was first used by the Ancient Romans.
It has been banned globally, and in most countries is a federal offence.
It was not always a bad thing, until Hitler adopted it into the Nazi Germans culture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_salute#Origins_and_adoption
I was reading what had been posted about the book burnings, and decided to look into it a bit more. It's hard to say how many books were banned, because there were many different groups involved in making lists of "inappropriate" literature, but what I could find out was that there were over 4,000 titles banned from libraries by 1934. The banning went on for several years after that too! I found out that some of the guidelines for banned literature were books on other religions, books about sexual education that "destroy the principles of race", and anything written by a ajewish person. I found this site that has a few articles explaining theses guidelines in more detail, as well as a list of banned authors.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbooks/documents.htm
I understood that Stalingrad was a battle that Germany had with Russia, but I didn't completely understand its significance. It took place between during the winter from 1942 to 1943, as the book mentioned, and was remembered for its brutality, bloodiness and disregard for casualties (both military and civilian). The higher of estimates for combined casualties nears two million people. Many historians see this battle as a turning point in World War II, as after it the German Army was put in full retreat, an entire German army group was lost, and 91000 Germans were taken prisoner.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_stalingrad.htm
I was also curious about whether Molching is a real town or not, and of course found that it wasn't. I found that the the town in the story is named after Olching, Germany and is close to Dachau an 20 km away from Munich. The Amper is real and runs along the West side of Olching.
ReplyDeletehttp://maps.google.ca/maps?rlz=1T4GGLL_enCA303CA303&q=dachau&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl
While I was wondering whether Molching was real, I also wondered if the dates of the bombings were true. It turns out there were bomobings in Germany on those dates, however, not nessesarily near Olching. The dates used in the book seem to relate to bombings in the German industrial town of Essen, according to the webpage I used.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich#World_War_I_to_World_War_II
Thats very interesting Riley. I researched Hitler a little bit and he was actually very popular. He was actually praised by a British Diplomat who actually compared Hitler to Ghandi. He was also praised by the Canadian Prime minister of the time William King. He wrote in his journal about his meeting with Hitler and he said "My sizing up of the man as I sat and talked with him was that he is really one who truly loves his fellow-men, and his country, and would make any sacrifice for their good." (Diary, June 29, 1937) Hitler appeared to be "a man of deep sincerity and a genuine patriot." (Diary, June 29, 1937) King saw similarities between himself and Hitler, writing, "As I talked with him, I could not but think of Joan of Arc. He is distinctly a mystic .... He is a teetotaller and also a vegetarian; is unmarried, abstemist in all his habits and ways." (Diary, June 29, 1937)"
ReplyDeleteGood point kyle, it's interesting and hard to believe how he got a large part of the population of, not only Germany, but of Europe and the rest of the world, to respect and believe in him. So much so, that Time magazine named him 'Man of the Year' in 1938.** The poor German population of the late 1930s were willing to believe in anyone that assured them that they would be able to pull them out of their enormous debt and make them a prosperous country again after the toll that the first world war took on them.
ReplyDelete**Here's a picture of the cover of Adolf Hitler's 'Time magazine':
http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.didyouknowthat.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/hitler-Time-man-of-the-year.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.didyouknowthat.net/hitler-was-voted-time-magazines-man-of-the-year-in-1938/2010/12/28/&usg=__Dcs5B4E0ZZIi8LTD-eqM1_tgEMs=&h=527&w=400&sz=30&hl=en&start=0&sig2=-hsfqeCBbax2HaMyYX3vkw&zoom=1&tbnid=JtNEnLY6ouF3lM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=88&ei=CdvRTYWzBY6-sAPN09y2CQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtime%2Bhitler%2Bman%2Bof%2Bthe%2Byear%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D521%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=315&vpy=37&dur=1052&hovh=258&hovw=196&tx=121&ty=140&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0
Wow Schylar that information makes a lot of sense of why Hitler acted the way he did when he was older.It's interesting to know the past of a very very bad man. To know that they were a child once and they had dreams etc.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that background on the "Heil Hitler". I did not know most of that information. I knew the Sawstika was adopted by Germans from other uses but it never occured to me that the "salute" was as well.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading I was really interested in finding out about Dachau and what it really was. So I did some research and found out that Dachau was a place where Jewish people went. Located in Dachau (hence the name) It was a concentration camp specifically for Jewish men that was brutal and known for its cruelty. During the first year that it was made, the camp had 4,800 prisoners and by the 1937, it already held 13,260 prisoners. When the war began the number of prisoners rose to 10,000, all men. The camp itself was divided into two sections, the camp area and crematoria. The men that were prisoned were forced to work and a lot of labor was involved. During the war thousands of prisoners worked until they died. For me personally, I think this sort of punishment was extremely harsh, I think it must've have been really hard on the family members who were sent here because they knew from stories and from their own experiences that it wasn't a happy place to go. For example for Liesel, it also must have been hard because she knew what they did to the men at the camp, and there was always the constant worry that the person might die, or never return.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/dachau.html
I have always wanted to know what would happen to people that were put into concentration camp. I found out that there are different types of camps that many Jewish people were sent off too. There are Concentration Camps that where they were forced to go through labour until death inflicted by over-exhaustion, starvation, or diseases from poor conditions. There are also Extermination Camps where people were forced into a freight train, once arrived, slaves were then told to remove everything (clothes, shoes.. if they owned any) and were crowded into a small room, where the Nazi's would then lock the door, and then gas everyone in the room. The dead bodies were then removed from the rooms, and burned. But what I found very surprising was that there were Medical Experiments Camps where some forms of medical torture were when Nazi's placed subjects in pressure chambers, froze them, tried to change the colour of children’s eyes by injecting chemicals into the pupil, and testing drugs on them. It's just super sad that many children and everybody else had to go through such torture.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thirdreichruins.com/munich.htm
ReplyDeleteThis website that I have found shows the differences between the Nazi times in Munich and the modern times right now. I was very curious about how Munich was affected by the Nazi invasion. Most of the historical building that used to display any loyalty to being a Nazi member, are still there but modernized and Nazi free.
Wow, Rudy really enjoys the image of Jesse Owens because the character was written to know all about him. I really didn’t know anything about this persona and was curious if all the facts about Jesse and Hitler in the book were right. So I did a little snooping and found an almost mirror statement as in the book. It said that Jesse Owens was an American Track and Field athlete born on September 12 1913. During the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, he won four gold medals, just as Rudy kept on mentioning. One in the 100 meters, one in the 200 meters, one in long jump and the last as part of the 4x100 meter relay team. When Adidas decided to sponsor Owens it was the first time an African-American male athlete had been sponsored, no wonder Rudy was so inspired. On day, Hitler only shook hands with the German Medalists but he was told he had to shake hands with all medalists or none at all. He decided to not shake any hands at all and refused to shake Owens’s hand. Jesse Owens died March 31 1980.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was reading the book a lot of the facts and events that were being mention at time confused and didn’t make sense especially what happen when. I really wanted to find a time line of the war that would help me understand not only how Himmel Street was affected but the world in a way. I really wanted to find a time line between the actually times in the book, from 1939 to 1943. Important events that happened during 1939, beginning with the start of World War 2 September 1 1939:
ReplyDelete• September 1 - Germany invades Poland
• September 3 - Great Britain and France declared war on Germany in support of their ally Poland
• September 17 - Soviet Union invades Poland
• September 28 - Germany reaches Warsaw, Poland
1940 is when there started to be really big battles and Britain and her commonwealth stood alone against Germany and Italy. Here are key events that happened that year.
ReplyDelete• May 7 - Churchill becomes Britain’s prime minister
• May 10 - Germany invades Holland, Luxemburg and Belgium
• May 14 - Germany breaks through French defenses
• May 28 - Belgium surrenders
• June 10 - Italy declares war on Britain and France
• June 14 - Germans enter Paris
• June 22 - France surrenders
• Aug-Sept - British Royal Air Force defeats Germans in the Battle of Britain
• September 27 - Japan joins axis powers (Germany and Italy)
• November 26 - Work starts on Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland
• December 9 - British begin Operation Compass in North Africa
During 1941 two key allied nations were brought in to the war; the Russians and the Americans. Here are some of the highlights of 1941:
ReplyDelete• February 5-7 - British and British commonwealth troops defeat the Italian tenth army at Beda Fomm
• Feb-March - German Africa corps land in North Africa to support Italians, they open successful counter offensive
• April 13 - Japan and Russia sign non aggression treaty
• June 22 - Germany invades Russia bringing Russia in to the war
• September 3 - German troops reach outskirts of Leningrad, Russia
• October 25 - German offensive against Moscow is stopped
• December 7 - Pearl Harbor is bombed by Japan
• December 8 - USA and Britain declare war on Japan
• December 11 - Germany and Italy declare war on USA
1942 was the year that the tide started to change from total German victory to the Allies starting to win more battles. Here is a list of the most important events that year.
ReplyDelete• January 20 - Wannsee conference adopts "Final Solution" - the mass extermination of the Jews - SS General Reinhard Heydrich made administrator
• January 31 - Singapore falls to Japanese
• April 18 - Doolittle raid on Tokyo, Japan by US bombers
• May 7-8 - Battle of Coral Sea (USA vs. Japan)
• May 30-31 - Cologne is first German city to be attacked in a 1000 bomber raid
• June 4-5 - Battle of Midway, all 4 Japanese carriers sunk
• September 13 - Germans launch main attack on Stalingrad, Russia
• October 23 - Battle of El Alamein, followed by Axis withdraw across North Africa and in to Tunisia
• November 8 - Operation Torch - Allied landings in North Africa
• November 12 - Battle for Guadalcanal begins
• November 19 - Russian winter offensive surrounds German troops in Stalingrad, Russia
1943:
ReplyDelete• January 31 - Von Paulus surrenders German forces at Stalingrad
• Feb - May - Heavy bombing raids on German cities, particularly Essen, Berlin, Duisburg and the Ruhr
• April 19 - SS troops massacre Polish Jews after ghetto rebels
• May 12 - German and Italian troops surrender in North Africa
• July 4 - 13 Germans attack at Kursk - largest tank battle of the war
• July 10 - Operation Huskey - Allies land in Sicily
• July 25 - Mussolini falls from power
• September 3 - 9 Operations Baytown, Slapstick and Avalanche - allies invade Italy
• October 13 Italian government switches sides