Character Blog: Liesel Meminger (The Book Thief)

The Beginning of A New Life, 

and the End of Another

The numbness of the pain was all I felt, standing with my mother and the corpse of the only other family member I had. I hoped that at any moment he would wake up and unwrap himself of the white fabric that covered his body, yet nothing happened. The air was cold, long by now my tears had frozen. The pain of the cold and hunger I felt had been nothing compared to the pain inside of my heart. How was I, Liesel Meminger, to deal with the death of my brother?

My brother suffered yet another coughing fit as we traveled down to Munich to live with a set of what I believe was called ‘foster parents.’ Mother was asleep during the time when he suddenly stopped coughing, Werner had died. Yet, nobody else seem to notice his blue eyes were still open and I knew he could see nothing. After a while, I had managed to sleep, and was met with a dream. In front of me the Führer himself, “Guten Tag, Herr Führer. Wie gehts dir heut?” I greeted him. Just as he was about reply to my greeting, I woke up. Few moments later my mother woke up, it turned out we had yet, several trains to take before we arrive to our destination of Munich. My mother still seemed to carry around my brother, but I know he wouldn’t be with us for long. As I looked around the place I was in, I felt... lost, all of my surroundings unknown. I looked forward, two men stood in front of us, gravediggers is what they were called. We took the corpse my brother to a freshly dug hole, there had even been a priest to perform Werner’s ceremony. As my mother thanked the priest, I saw a young man, an apprentice of the grave digger, drop something out of his pocket, a book. As I picked up I noticed the silver writing on its cover. This was the first book I ever owned.

That we bordered yet another train, the final train. As we arrived to the station Mama and I were faced with the authorities who would take me to my new home. They questioned my mother on where Werner was and why were late. While my mother sat on the hard chair and answered the questions they threw at her, I could tell she was holding back in a way. Before I knew it, my mother was saying goodbye as I cried and held her tight, almost as if there was not tomorrow. Later on, I found myself in a car traveling to meet my foster parents. As we arrived to a house that was on Himmel Street, Frau Heinrich, the foster care lady said, “Dein neues Heim.” Frau Heinrich exited the car and walked inside of the house that awaited us, moments later I was met with the face of a tall man who stood next a rather klein woman. I learned later on the names of these unknown strangers, who would soon become my parents were, Hans Hubermann and Rosa Hubermann. At that moment I did not know what would become of my life, so I decided that I would not get out of the car, whatsoever. I could hear the petite lady ask, “Was ist los mit dem Kind?” I could tell she was somewhat frustrated as she said, “Na, komm. Komm.” I was still stuck on the idea that no matter what, I would not exit the car. My efforts in the end, seemed to be in vain, the kind man managed to coax me out of the car.

Since my arrival to Himmel Street, I had been thinking of several things, such as my true Papa. Living in Germany, I realized that it was not a very good thing to have brown eyes, which I had, yet my blonde hair helped a bit. All I knew from my real Papa was a word I never heard often, unless it was something about him, “Kommunist.” I did not know what the word truly meant,  I had asked Mama what that meant several times, she said not to worry about it. I wondered if my real Papa is anything like Mr. Hubermann. Mr. Hubermann, though his wife Rosa was stern, had grown on me, he had even taught me how to roll up a cigar. Rosa Hubermann was also kind to me, she would ask order me to call her Mama, she also would tell me that she loved me. I believe her type of love was a bit special, it often included spoons and words that a child should not speak. Life on Himmel Street was not as bad as one would think, except there was one problem, school. The school I was to attend was made for Catholics, meanwhile I was a Lutheran, on top of this I could not read nor write. 

After my thoughts of all my educational problems I was rather happy to make a friend, Rudy Steiner. Rudy was an incredible runner, I was told that once before my appearance on Himmel Street he covered himself in coal and ran along town saying he was Jesse Owens. Later on, his father caught him and he got in trouble. As imaginable, Rudy was a very interesting person, an interesting person who I enjoyed to call my best friend. We would often go outside together and play soccer, I often got stuck as the goalie. Though I lived a new life, I was often haunted involuntarily by my thoughts while I lied at night unconscious. During the times when I would wake, I would tiptoe quietly down the halls  so I would not wake up Mama. After I securely made it to Papa and Mama's room I would wake Papa, several times. Papa had learned get use to the early awakenings, by this time he knew that I would not sleep again, so he decided to teach me how to read and write. After I managed to learn the alphabet and to decipher words, we read the first book I ever stole, A Twelve-Step Guide to Grave-Digging Success.