By Beata Stasak
The strange but true ways of the little book thief
The first book was stolen from snow, the second from fire, when she came to write her story, she would wonder exactly when the books and words started not just to mean something, but everything.
Her father was a communist, they were boarding houses crammed with people, rooms filled with questions, that strange word there somewhere...
standing in the corner watching from the dark. One day, the woman was taken away for questioning. She didn't come back.
Her mother was constantly sick and there was never any money to fix her. The girl knew that. But that didn't mean she had to accept it.
No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.
Nothing changed the fact that she was a lost, skinny child in another foreign place.
Alone. She wandered around till the stars were dragged down into the waters of the German sky. Nazi Germany was her birthplace.
"Why shouldn't I want to be black person or Jew or anyone else who is...not us?" She constantly asked.
Her foster father's face, it travelled and wondered but it disclosed no answers. Not yet.
She was a girl made of darkness and it was anger and dark hatred that had fuelled her desire to steal the books she wanted to read.
She hated to be always silent, always alone, no words, not once.
She knew, one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life and death to more death.
Some people call it destiny, I would call it 'a path leading to an opportunity not to be missed.'
She loved the fact here reading and writing would soon be on the verge of something respectable.
All of this resulted in some form of contentment, she was ready to approach the concept of 'Being Happy' in spite of horrors happening around her.
It was one of those moments of perfect tiredness, of having conquered not only the work at hand but the night that had blocked the way.
She realised that she was only victim of circumstance, living in a world full of darkness but she was not beaten.
Then her foster father gave her answer. Neighbours spat on his feet: "We knew it, you dirty Jew-lover."
None of it moved him in the slightest. He was waiting for Gestapo to come.
"Are you not scared?" The girl asked.
"I am just a man." He replied. "You are more than that." She shook her head.
Her stolen books taught her well, she knew now that everyone, white, Jew or black is just a man, and yet more than that...
and because of that we can all have a second chance...a chance to start over again and survive...
She remembered from her childhood making three separated towers of dominoes. Together, with her friends they would tap one and watch everything...
that was so carefully planned collapse and they would smile at the beauty of destruction.
They watched them fall until all the towers were brought to its knees. They all cheered. Now, she is the only one left. Their friends' life rugs were snatched from under their sleeping feet.
There was only her now and she was writing a book down that she hoped we would read one day...and learn that there is no beauty in destruction.
Watching recently the play by Tim Winton: 'Rising Water' I remember the little girl from 'The Book Thief' story and her message.
Set on the eve of Australia Day three Australians are forced to delve into who they are how they got to where they are...
It was not until 1935 that all the states and territories used the term 'Australia Day' to mark that date. It's our largest national day of celebration. Or is it?
For 47 percent of Australians Australia Day is a lamentation of White Settlement and our very white culture. For our Indigenous community Australia Day represents the beginning of destruction...
and is referred to as 'Invasion Day' or 'Survival Day'. It seems that more and more we see images and hear stories of Australia Day being the one-day in the year where we can be racist...
violent alcoholics and not be judged by others because we are showing our national pride and doing our patriotic duty.
Tim Winton ponders: "Is there anywhere else in the world as white as this? Have you ever seen a town so waxed and polished and pastel and pasteurised-like a beautiful, cold pint of milk-so tidy and safe?"
Whiteness. That's why they are here, and that's what Australia Day represents for some people, it remains a day of division for many of us...
Australia Day is meant to draw us together and be a day for all Australians to enjoy. But is it?
One Australian occupies the old sloop, another the sleek ocean-going yacht calls his home and the last one is sandwiched between the two in a run-down sailboat.
Only loosely tethered to shore but never ready to set sail, these three Australians are live-aboards in a Fremantle Marina.
Their boats are docked side by side and the boat's occupants are from different backgrounds and walks of life. It provides a rare insight into one of the few remaining places in Australia where people from different backgrounds live so close...
They are in a limbo of their own making, caught between the promise of land and the mysterious lure of sea...just like many of their fellow Australians....
The colour black, red and white and all the colours between
The colours of a day
black is at its beginning
and end...
The darkest moment
before the dawn
death is on hand
to see
our greatest crimes
and miseries,
our fight for survival
and endless grief.
Next comes something white
of the blinding kind,
a story of human courage,
friendship,
love.
A day merges
through a multitude
of shades,
with each passing moment
a single hour
consists
of thousands
of different colours,
waxy yellows
full of cruelty,
followed by
cloud-spat blues
of human honesty,
sprinkled
with warm orange
of kind sincerity
suddenly lost again
in a murky darkness
of war...
red
is the last colour
you may see.
A young Australian
of a German blood
listen to his parents' stories
of cities on fire
and Jews being marched
to concentrations camps.
Munich's burning sky
cries from his Mother's tired eyes.
His Father,
a sole survivor
on enemy side
the one
left behind,
never talks
about
being whipped
on a street
for giving
a starving Jewish man,
being marched to Dachau,
a piece of bread.
The bread
was
stripped away,
the taker of the bread
sank to his knees
shot dead.
The giver of the bread
spat on
and ridiculed
by his fellow German citizens,
wanted to survive
just like the Jew
on the other side,
but there was no point
to explain this
to the Americans.
He walked to Dachau
after its liberation
only to be denied
and criticised
for his inaction.
He was again
on wrong side.
And yet he survived.
Crumbling
amongst
the jigsaw puzzle
of realisation,
despair and surprise
and guilt that never ceases,
He drove a taxi
in Sydney
for the rest of his migrant's life,
watching drivers
on both sides
passing him
every day
seeing Hitlers and killers,
freedom fighters
and Jew-lovers,
among them,
waiting for their opportunity,
to show
'their true colours'
once another war starts.
There is no wrong
and there is no right,
life looses its worth
in times of war
and yet
there is nothing
we cherish more.
Why to fight then
and what for?
A young Australian
of a German blood
with eyes full of the best blue
of the perfect sky,
tried to imagine
the grey and gloomy sky
of his parents' lives,
he walked back down to Munich street
in his dreams
but nothing was left,
there was no recovery
from what happened
in forties
in the last century.
He imagined the world as a factory,
the sun stirs it,
the humans rule it,
humanly in time of peace
and inhumanly otherwise.
And Death remains.
He carries them away
in both times.
The death,
haunted by humans,
by their beauty in their brutality,
in their gloriously ugly times
living in a world so damningly brilliant.
Who else was there to tell the story of his parents
from the World War II,
the war that never cease to shame our hearts and mind?
The war story in red, black and white,
and all the colours between.
The start was snow,
the time had come,
for one,
in 1939.
She was nine years old,
soon to be ten.
Her little brother was dead.
The first book was stolen from his grave.
The next day was grey,
the colour of Munich.
Curtains of rain
were drawn around her,
The girl was sent to foster home.
Like soft silver melting
his manner
the quiet air around him,
he came every night
and sat with her,
to soothe the terror of her dreams.
Everything about her
was undernourished,
a starving smile
upon seeing
her foster father's eyes
made of kindness.
She opened her first stolen book
and he taught her to read.
Ten years old meant Hitler Youth,
wearing brown uniforms
and marching, marching, marching
back to the Amper River
that flanked the town
pointing in the direction of Dachau,
the concentration camp.
At the end of another grey
school day,
it began to rain,
nice and hard,
a culmination of misery
swept over her,
she crouched in the gutter
and wept.
Rudy, her best friend,
stood next to her
looking down.
World War II began,
but they were not aware of that.
They followed the road of yellow stars,
some people were moving around,
the drizzle made them look
like ghosts,
the shapes moving about
beneath the lead-coloured clouds.
Only in the years ahead
would they understand
it all,
when it was too late
to bother
understanding anything.
German flags
everywhere
showed unflinching support
for Hitler,
everywhere
but her foster house.
The second book
she stole
from the fire,
that burnt for weeks
and Jewish literature had disappeared.
A German girl made of darkness
met a Jewish boy made of misery,
hiding in their basement
for another four years.
In 1943
a 14-year old girl
is writing into a small dark book,
she is bony and strong
and has seen many things.
Her silver father
sits
with the accordion
at his feet,
their secret Jewish visitor
hiding behind some sheets.
Another grey school day
had finished.
They rode home on rusty bikes,
her and her friend Rudy,
they rode home a couple of miles,
from summer to autumn
from a quiet night
to the noisy breath
of the bombing of Munich.
The Germans in basements
were pitiable
How many had actively persecuted others,
high on the scent of Hitler's gaze,
did they deserve any better
than die in a raid?
Was the hider of a Jew also responsible?
While everyone was holding the hand of another
in a cellar,
the hidden Jew went out,
the first time in twenty-two months,
stealing a glimpse of the sky.
The long walks to Dachau
in smoky colours
they watched the Jews
come down the road,
stars of David,
plastered on their shirts,
their suffering faces reached across to them,
pleading not so much for help,
they were beyond that.
On the ration cards of Nazi Germany
there was no listing
for punishment,
but everyone
had to take their turn.
For some,
it was death in a foreign country
during fighting,
for others,
it was poverty and guilt,
when the war was over
and six million grizzly discoveries were made.
“God please, don't send my father to Russia,”
she said.
It was a sign of the German army's growing
desperation,
to punish those who helped the helpless
and those
who refused to let go
of their children.
The sky was white-horse grey.
The danger melt into one.
Powder and smoke.
And the gusty flames.
People roaming through the fog,
names limped through the ruptured streets,
sometimes ending with an ash-filled embrace
or a knelt-down howl of grief.
The corpse was face-down.
It lay in a blanket of powder and dust,
holding its ears
not to hear any more bomb raids.
It was Rudy,
the boy of her age
and the best friend she ever had.
Her silver eyed father lied next to him.
The spoken truth of the book thief:
“I guess I am better at leaving things behind
than stealing them.”
The sky began to charcoal towards light,
while she shouted, veiled and cried.
She was holding desperately on the words
that had saved her life:
'The Book thief and the word shaker'
a small collection of thoughts
from a Jewish boy
for a German girl,
in which house I was hidden once.
“Word shaker?”
She wondered aloud:
The best word shakers
were those
who understood
the true power of words.
She made an effort to smile
and goes on reading....
The world was deteriorating fast
around her,
blood was bleeding through
in the aftermath of the snow of Stalingrad.
Sometimes humans have the good sense to die.
“What good were the words?”
She asked people constantly:
“Without them, there wouldn't be
limping prisoners,
no need for consolation
or worldly trick to make us feel better,
without words,
the fuhrer was nothing.”
There was no answer
from the people passing by,
just a present from the Mayor's wife,
a little black book,
the notebook to write.
“Don't punish yourself,”
She heard her to say,
but there would be punishment and pain,
and there would be happiness too.
That was writing.
The Book Thief – Last Line:
“I have hated the words and I have loved them,
and I hope I have made them right.”
Outside the world whistled.
The rain was stained.
Almost all the words are fading now.
The black book is disintegrating
under the weight of her travels through life,
but the three things remain:
the human resilience,
the power of hope
and the last colour black.
Markus Zusak 'The Book Thief'
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