I have seen Death.

I died yesterday.

Death came to me. I saw him and met him proudly with my soul sitting straight up. I was proud to die. I have lived a life full of joy and sadness, because without sadness we cannot know true joy. I had three children, who have children. I was reunited with Max, I worked with Rudy's father. All my life, I never forgot my years as the book thief.

I left mortality from Sydney, Australia, house number 45.

Then Death talked to me. He put me down and pulled out a little black book.

"Is that really it?" My book that had been lost for so long. I couldn't believe it.

I opened the book and read, reflecting on my life as a thirteen year old. I remembered my Himmel Street, my home, in ruins.

Death told me he had read my book many times. My hope for someone to enjoy it was fulfilled.

"Did you understand it?"
I wasn't sure that I completely understood it. I looked at the little black book and found profound truths about life hidden there. My emotions were real and human. However, I wondered if Death could learn anything from me.

I thought about humans, how different we are from each other, and yet how much we share. We are conflicted, and we make choices. We are the only ones to make a choice. We may choose bad, we may choose good.

Death told me, "I am haunted by humans."

Yet, the hint in his voice said more. It said, "You are so complicated. I am haunted by memories of goodness, memories of evil. I have seen all and can be everywhere. I am Death, and yet, I love humans."


August 12, 2006

Thief

The first was The Grave Digger's Handbook.
Location: Icy ground, near train tracks, outside of Munich.
Time: After Werner's death.

Stealing a book is not like stealing anything else. It's stealing knowledge, adventure, and emotion. A book in Germany was like a pearl in a pig pen. It was rare, and unappreciated. A book can satisfy my hunger more effectively than food. Rudy only cared about food. He didn't understand that I could eat dirt, but I couldn't read anything but printed words.

The second: The Shoulder Shrug
Location: Molching, Nazi book burning in front of the Mayor's house

Book burnings are repugnant. I walked away from the sight. A book was smoldering on the side, still intact. I stole it, and I had a witness. Isla Hermann, the mayor's wife. I lived in fear for weeks, praying that she would not tell.

I did not have to worry. Frau Hermann was a soft spoken woman who loved the written word. Many days after, I looked longingly at her library as I delivered the washed laundry. I believe that she must have seen my stares. She took pity. My next book steals were from there. I thought that I was using the most clandestine methods of history. Frau Hermann has told me since that she knew of every book that I "stole." She began leaving books next to an open window, along with a plate of cookies for Rudy and his stomach. The last gift she gave me came after I was extremely insolent. I destroyed a book in anger from her library. I left a letter apologizing, adding that I would not come any more.

She came to my house with a little black book. The book was blank. She told me to write. "Schribe."

That book saved my life. I spent weeks in the basement at night, writing ten pages each night. I wrote my story because I knew it best. I finished on October 2, the night of the air raid. I read my last sentence over and over again.
"I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right." From The Book Thief

My book was lost that night. But I don't need the book. Writing it has helped me overcome some of my problems. I can only hope that someone can benefit from it.

October 9, 1945

Jewish Fist Fighter

I hope this will make him wake up.
My friend Max is sick. He lies there day to day, like a corpse. A corpse would be a problem. We would have to dispose of it secretly, because Max is a Jew. He has hid in our basement for what seems like forever.
Max came to us and asked my papa two questions.
"Are you Hans Hubermann?"
"Do you still play the accordion?"
The answer was yes. And the answer to the silent plea for help was the same.
Max's father was my papa's friend in the army. He saved his life and taught him to play the accordion. Helping Max is the least that we can do.
The basement has always been my reading place. I learned to write with paint on the basement walls. It is my midnight solace from nightmares, and my library. This didn't change when Max came. Max has nightmares, too. I wonder if his nightmares are keeping him asleep, holding him captive.
Max told me about his past, and I told him mine. Max was a fighter, not that he always won, but he fought. When the new regime came into power, Max hid for months in one room. He was joyful when given the slip of paper with Papa's name on it. Max is a source of joy in my life.
For my birthday, Max wrote a book for me. He painstakingly painted over pages of Mein Kampf and used them to draw his story and mine. This was The Standover Man. He thanked me for watching over him the three days that he rested.
Now, he is sick from the cold in the basement. I am watching over him again. I bring him gifts to show him the world. I read to him from all my books. I got a new book just for him.
Max, wake up!

March 3, 1942

Germany, 1943.

I am surviving the Holocaust.
I survived as the ordinary German. We were subject to the leadership of the Fuhrer. He was the dictator, and we suffered. My papa didn't join the Nazi party, so he was punished. He couldn't find work because everyone was scared to get out of Nazi favor. The German society was about revenge. When Papa painted over slander on a Jewish wall, he was shunned. He was later allowed to join the Nazi party, but only to be placed in the war as revenge. Our Leader was afraid of defiance. Books with any anti-Nazi, or pro-Jew sentiments were burned. That is where I acquired The Shoulder Shrug.
I survived living in a town next to a concentration camp. I know that the Jews are suffering more than I did, but because of that knowledge, I felt some of their pain. When the detainees were marched through our town, no punishment was enough to stop me from helping them with some bread or a kind word. I watched for Max, hoping to see him, and yet hoping he got away. The memory of Max cowering in my basement is enough to make me resent this war.
I survived the bombings, although everyone else on Himmel Street did not.
My papa survived his military assignment, but others did not. He came home because of injuries. Others in the vehicle were killed. My papa was lucky. Lucky, and that was all.
The war is coming to an end, and Hitler will have much to answer for.
April 7, 1945

Himmel Street

At age nine, I came to my foster family. My mother needed to leave to the country, so she took my brother, Werner, and I to Munich. On the train ride, my brother died. I am sure my mother had a reason, but now I do not have a mother. Or a brother.
I came to Himmel Street. Himmel means Heaven. Heaven Street. It did not look like a heaven.My foster parents were waiting. The foster care lady presented them with, "Your new home." It took fifteen minutes to coax me out of the car. Papa won over me with his quiet nature, and I conceded. From that time on, I have lived in the house on Himmel Street with Papa and Mama Rosa. Until now. Himmel Street is gone. Rudy, Tommy, Frau Holtzapfel, Frau Diller, Pfiffikus, Papa, Mama. All are gone. I can not recognize my street. You wonder why I was saved. I was saved by The Book Thief. I was writing, in the basement. The basement that was deemed not deep enough for an air raid shelter. I lived because of luck. The sirens didn't go off in time. Every person I know has died.
I asked the Air Raid Special Unit man, "Is this still Himmel Street?" That was before it hit me. Where was Papa and Mama and Rudy and everyone else? I looked around and saw their bodies being carried away by workers. My papa was a broken accordion. I wept. I was carried away. Now I will have to make a life for myself away from my home. Himmel Street may not have been a heaven, but it was a home.
August 18, 1943

Jesse Owens

"Can I have a kiss?" he asks.

Rudy Steiner. My best friend. Just being himself.

"NO, or I'll give you the worst whipping of your life."

Me, being myself.

Rudy was my soccer playing friend, my neighbor friend, my friend at school, my friend in thievery. He was my best friend.

Note about Rudy: He was famous in the neighborhood for his crazy ideas. His most famous (or infamous, depends how you look at it) escapade was known as the Jesse Owens stunt. Rudy fancied himself as the best runner, not without reason. In 1936, the Olympics were held in Berlin. Jesse Owens dominated the track despite racial discrimination. So Rudy decided that he was Jesse Owens. The next day, he painted himself black and went running around the school track, until his papa dragged him home. That tells a lot about Rudy. He was his own person, and he wouldn't give up.

We played soccer, all of the neighborhood kids, as a respite from our troubled nation. Soccer could help us forget the scene of Jews marched through the village on the way to concentration camp. Rudy and I took pleasure in this simple return to innocence and childhood. We were the little mischief makers who ran around with no discipline, and we loved it.

Rudy was my comrade in everything, and that includes thievery. We joined a gang of food thieves, driven by hunger and poverty. We stole together, and reaped the profits together.
Rudy died at the age of twelve in the bombing of Himmel Street. No one could have had a more loyal friend. I wept over his body and granted his persistent request.

"Yes, Rudy. You can have a kiss."

December 24, 1946

An Accordionist

My papa is a painter. Not an artist, but a house painter. He is the kind of man who will paint a house for half of a cigarette. My papa painted over the words written on a Jew's door. That is why my papa is not in the Party. He smokes. He loves to roll the cigarettes. The first time I met him, I knew that I would have no trouble calling him Papa. Papa plays the accordion. That is how he earns some money. He learned to play in the war. That is the only thing he will tell me about the war.

My papa loves me. He makes me laugh, and makes Mama happy. It’s a good thing when Mama is happy. I can tell because she calls me Saumensch more when she is happy.

But most of all, my papa has taught me to read. He is not, by any description, well educated. He is not an expert on reading. But he taught me. I came as a shy, timid child clutching a book I had found at my brother’s grave. The Grave Digger’s Handbook. Not standard reading material, but it was a connection to my past life. Papa taught me to read and write. I wrote with paint on the basement walls because paper was scarce. I read in the basement in the middle of the night with my papa when I woke up from a bad dream. Papa was always there to assure me that my past was in the past, and that I was safe with him. Then we would read more of The Grave Digger’s Handbook. As each book came into my life, my papa was the one who read with me and through that, live with me.

July 12, 1941

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