By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO― Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief has been a best seller since its publication in 2006. It occupies a particular niche in Holocaust and World War Two fiction as a novel targeted at adolescent audiences. Thus, it cautiously navigates between the grim reality of the mass violence of that era and the optimistic hope that human compassion will prevail over human cruelty. The movie adaptation of the book by Brian Percival, who has also directed episodes of Downton Abbey, accentuates the former and downplays the latter.
There is a mythical quality to the plotline. Death (Roger Allam) narrates the story. Though content with his job since everyone must die, he finds himself intrigued by the human capacity to be “so ugly and glorious.” He gravitates to twelve-year old Liesel, portrayed sensitively by French Canadian actress Sophie Nélisse, who suffers the loss of her mother and death of her younger brother in the opening scene.
The mother, a communist presumably on the verge of being arrested or going underground, relinquishes her daughter to a German couple, Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Rosa (Emily Watson). Hans immediately lavishes love and sympathy on Liesel; Rosa hides her kindness behind a stern façade, but slowly reveals it to her new ward. The family significantly lives on Heaven Street in an idyllic looking German village.
The infiltration of Nazism into this otherwise serene setting is symbolized by the omnipresence of swastika banners and occasional verbal denunciations of communists and Jews. At school Liesel is ostracized because she is illiterate and tainted by her mother’s political affiliation. The film makes no effort to focus on, let alone explain, a classroom poster illustrating the physical differences between Aryans and Jews.
Though Liesel valiantly defends herself against a pro-Nazi bully, a blond boy named Rudy (Nico Liersch) sides with her and becomes her close friend. Rudy registers his protest against the regime by blacking his face and pretending he is Jesse Owens. His father rebukes him for the politically dangerous stunt. Meanwhile, Hans teaches Liesel how to read and paints the walls of the cellar with new vocabulary words gleaned from a gravedigger’s manual which she picked up at her brother’s burial.
A brief scene depicting the ransacking of Jewish stores on Kristallnacht serves as a backdrop for the separation of a Jewish teenager named Max (Ben Schnetzer) and his mother. Max’s father had saved Hans during World War One, and now Hans reciprocates by concealing Max in his home. Liesel and Max bond as kindred spirits who are both outcasts and orphans. Liesel describes what the weather is like outside the house, and Max reads books she either borrows from the mayor’s wife or rescues from a bonfire which the local Nazis fed with volumes of banned works. She nurses Max back to health, and, he paints over the pages of Mein Kampf to make a diary for her.
When she wonders why the Nazis persecute Jews, Max replies, “It is because we remind them of their humanity.” Refusing to jeopardize his adopted family any more, Max decides to leave. He is ostensibly deported with the other Jews of the town in 1942.
After that somber procession, ordinary Germans become the victims of Nazism and aerial warfare. Hans gets conscripted into the army despite his age. Rudy learns he has been selected for an “elite” education which probably means attending a Napola boarding school where the purest specimens of Aryan youth are indoctrinated and trained to be the future leaders of the Third Reich. The Allied bombers strike nearer to Heaven Street. Liesel draws on her experiences and words to calm her frightened neighbors in the bomb shelter with a story: “There once was a girl who had a friend that lived in the shadows. She would remind him how the sun felt on his skin and the air felt like to breath, and that reminded her that she was still alive.”
Liesel’s message is neither subtle nor new. Like Anne Frank, she transforms her ordeal into a literary legacy and perseveres in her faith in the benevolence of humankind. The grisly details of what happens to the deported Jews are not allowed to impinge on her optimism. The film features beautiful cinematography, excellent acting, and much humor. Unfortunately, it provides only fleeting glimpses of the malevolent Medusa which lurks on the periphery of its narrative. If it had lingered longer on those scenes, it might have turned Liesel’s heart into stone.
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted at lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com