Author: Markus Zusak
The day was grey, the colour of Europe.
Not-leaving: An act of trust and love, often deciphered by children.
I’ve noticed about the Germans: They seem very fond of pigs.
‘The Jesse Owens Incident’, in which he painted himself charcoal-black and ran the hundred metres at the local sporting field one night.
Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.
‘Do you want to run away together?’
Eleven-year-old paranoia was powerful. Eleven-year-old relief was euphoric.
In the army, he didn’t stick out at either end. He ran in the middle, climbed in the middle, and he could shoot straight enough so as not to affront his superiors.
In the army, he didn’t stick out at either end. He ran in the middle, climbed in the middle, and he could shoot straight enough so as not to affront his superiors. Nor did he excel enough to be one of the first chosen to run straight at me.
To live. Living was living. The price was guilt, and shame.
one’s urine smells as good as your own.
No-one’s urine smells as good as your own.
Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day. That was the business of hiding a Jew.
He watched the next person climb through the ropes. It was a girl, and as she slowly crossed the canvas, he noticed a tear torn down her left cheek.
It’s also worthy of mention that every pattern has at least one small bias, and one day it will tip itself over, or fall from
one page to another. In this case, the dominant factor was Rudy.
His chin resting on his knees, he listened to the girl he’d struggled to teach the alphabet. Reading proudly, she unloaded the final frightening words of the book to Max Vandenburg.
Competence was attractive.
‘Hals und Beinbruch, Saukerl.’ She’d told him to break his neck and leg.
Liesel wished him luck in a typically German manner.
In the interest of a civil environment, Rosa Hubermann and Frau Holtzapfel were kept
separated, though some things were above petty arguments.
Just as it made its way to Rudy Steiner’s lips it was snatched away by his father. ‘Not you, Jesse Owens.’
‘There were stars,’ he said. ‘They burned my eyes.’
War clearly blurred the distinction between logic and superstition.
A voice played the notes inside her. This, it said, is your accordion.
‘I am stupid,’ Hans Hubermann told his foster daughter. ‘And kind. Which makes the biggest idiot in the world.
Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German.
You’re lucky I like you, Hubermann. You’re lucky you’re a good man, and generous with the cigarettes.’
‘Tell me something,’ he said, ‘because I don’t understand …’ He fell back and sat against the wall. ‘Tell me, Rosa, how she can sit there ready
to die while I still want to live?’ The blood thickened. ‘Why do I want to live? I shouldn’t want to, but I do.’
Michael Holtzapfel knew what he was doing. He killed himself for wanting to live.
She had seen her brother die with one eye open, one still in a dream. She had said goodbye to her mother and imagined her lonely wait for a train back home to oblivion.
She had seen her brother die with one eye open, one still in a dream. She had said goodbye to her mother and imagined her lonely wait for a train back home to oblivion. A woman of wire had laid herself down, her scream travelling down the street till it fell sideways like a rolling coin starved of momentum. A young man was hung by a rope made of Stalingrad snow. She had watched
She had seen her brother die with one eye open, one still in a dream. She had said goodbye to her mother and imagined her lonely wait for a train back home to oblivion. A woman of wire had laid herself down, her scream travelling down the street till it fell sideways like a rolling coin starved of momentum. A young man was hung by a rope made of Stalingrad snow. She had watched
She had seen her brother die with one eye open, one still in a dream. She had said goodbye to her mother and imagined her lonely wait for a train back home to oblivion. A woman of wire had laid herself down, her scream travelling down the street till it fell sideways like a rolling coin starved of momentum. A young man was hung by a rope made of Stalingrad snow. She had watched
a bomber pilot die in a metal case. She had seen a Jewish man who had twice given her the most beautiful pages of her life marched to a concentration camp. And at the centre of all of it, she saw the Führer, shouting his words and passing them around.
By contrast, Frau Diller was fast asleep. Her bullet-proof glasses were shattered next to the bed.
This is the lady that was a huge fan pf hiter. Now her bulletproof Hitler and his forces have fallen. Her glass is broken.
A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR I am haunted by humans.