Friday, March 21, 2014

Deep Emotions spill out from “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak



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(Providing both covers - Top - Original Bottom - Soft Cover)

Deep Emotions spill out from “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak

I am soaking in the emotions of my life today – after reading a very unusual book entitled “The Book Thief”… narrated by “Death” himself.  Whoa!  What a book!! (Wikipedia – about the Novel)
I cannot really understand yet why this one has so powerfully woven itself into my imagination and thought life… except maybe it is the German DNA in me.

Yep I have quite a bit of German in me…Great Grandparents and all their relatives way back before the late 1890s… when my relatives on that side moved to North America.

My own History first – as I know it…

In the late 1800s my Great Grandfather August Schledee (Schleede) and his family moved from near Hamburg to Southern Texas.  After a period of time there they moved to California to become a Peach Orchard owner. The crops were too good and there were too many peaches – so they lost the business.  He then moved to Oregon next and then finally Saskatchewan.

One of their daughters married my Grandfather Kirkpatrick.
This Grandfather Kirkpatrick’s mother and grandmother (and their families away back) were also German.  This branch of the family came to the USA in the earlier 1800s.

What a mixture with the Kirkpatricks, Phillips, and Lincolns!

During the First World War the recently arrived and also established German immigrants felt the disdain of those that lost loved ones in that horrible war. Then during the next, the Second World War – again they felt that sting.  I can only imagine the feeling of living in this Foreign Country (USA and then Canada)…having relatives back home in Germany… with the loss of life in all parts of Europe.

Back in Canada we only knew of the horrors of losing our young men to the War(s) – and having them come back broken and suffering.
I never gave one thought to what might have been happening to some of my distant relatives back in Germany. After all who would think of these people that Hitler so easily befuddled or murdered.

The Book Thief helped me to see into the countryside near Munich, Germany and a small street, with a young girl that was inserted into a simple family’s life.

WOW!

And – again – “Death” himself, told me the story.  From the mid 1930s to the middle or end of 1944 Death visited my relatives in Germany hundreds of thousands of times.  Death took Germans and he took Jews as their lives were so intricately interwoven – and Hitler hated them all so much.

I never even gave these poor people a second thought – even though I was born in 1944 when at least 5 years of death and destruction had taken place by that time.  I never gave any of my distant, German relatives a wisp or care for what happened to them.

Through the story woven by Markus Zusak, the author of “The Book Thief” – now I know of the possibilities of horrific suffering and destruction.

~ Murray Lincoln ~

For your inspection

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