Climax in the Book Thief

Cover of The Book Thief

Today I shall do the final blog post (sadface) about the Book Thief, written by Marcus Zusak.

This time it shall be about the most exciting bit, the high point... the climax!

I have finished the book (583 pages I believe!) I'm finally really getting on with my book project! I really love the book and I am rereading it!

So, back to the climax. In The Book Thief there are a lot of conflicts that could be viewed as climaxes. I looked at all of them and decided that this was the main climax, as it caused a lot of things and it was toward the end. 

The climax happens when a Jewish Death March is going through Molching (where the plot takes place). A Jew death March is a march of Jewish prisoners from concentration camps. These are extremely long and difficult, and many people  are taken on long walks where quite a few of them would die.  Hans Hubermann and Liesel both sympathize for Jews (as they have Max, a Jew in hiding, living in their basement, who both of them love.) When the parade goes past, one of the older men starts to feel faint. Usually when one of the prisoners falls over, they are whipped and left to die. However when this man falls over, Hans rushes over to help him up. This is strictly against all Nazi rules. The Nazi's guarding the march run over and pick both the man and Hans up, and they are whipped severely. From then on, the Nazi's in Molching have their eyes on Hans. 

Since the Hubermann's are scared that the Nazi's will discover Max, they send him away. Even though the basement is never searched, Hans is sent away to work in the War, picking up the bodies of dead citizens in the cities. 

This is important because it separates the family, which is sad and dramatic, and also Max is sent away. He is then seen, a few months later in one of the Jew Death Marches from the camp in Dachau. This is really scary and causes a lot of pain for the family.