[Novel] Genocide Stages in "The Book Thief" and "Between Shades of Gray"

            

The stages of genocide proposed by Stanton (1998) reflected in The Book Thief and Between Shades of Gray as follows.

1. Classification

During the Holocaust Hitler divided the Germans and the Jews which is featured in The Book Thief. Hitler favored his ideal Aryan race (blonde hair, blue eyes, and pure German blood) the stereotype of Jews being the opposite of that, put them in grave danger. Rudy Steiner is mentioned as having hair the color of lemons, and considered lucky to not have and resemblance to a Jew. As Zusak describes it in the novel "He was eight month older than Liesel and had bony legs, sharp teeth, gangly blue eyes, and hair the color of a lemon" (48). Rudy has the ideal Aryan race that is blonde hair with blue eyes.

In Between Shades of Gray, classification is shown by the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. As described in the novel, “They've deported people from Estonia and Latvia too” (Chapter 32). Stalin wants to take over Baltic States, as Sepetys’s notion in the novel “Stalin has a plan, my love….He wants Lithuania for the Soviet Union, so he’s moving us out temporarily” (Chapter 13).

2. Symbolization

Classification and symbolization go hand in hand. After classifying the Jews, Hitler was now able to assign a symbol to them- the yellow star-so it would be easier to identify the Jews in your own neighborhood, without having any uncomfortable tension. In The Book Thief, the yellow stars are shown in the Schiller Strasse, where all the Jewish shops are marked with yellow stars and slurs. "The road of yellow stars" (51), the houses on this road have been vandalized and yellow stars are painted on their walls. In Nazi Germany, Jews had to wear yellow stars on their clothing, and to mark their houses with yellow stars as well—because the “Star of David” is a prominent Jewish symbol.

This however wasn't shown in Sepety's novel because groups were not given a specific or obvious symbol.

3. Dehumanization

The group is compared with animals, and is not treated with the normal courtesy that humans deserve. In the book we see Jews being marched to death and concentration camps (Dachau), deprived of food, and humiliated as they walk through Molching. The Jews are malnourished and in miserable condition, most of them “collapsed from starvation and sickness” (389). Very few people would stand for the "rats", and the soldiers give no regard to the health of any of the Jews. There is only one person out of the crowd of abusive Germans who is feeling bad for Jews, Hans Hubermann. He offers a Jews man a piece of bread, and the man falls between Hans' feet crying and thanking him. The soldiers whip the Jew six times then whip Hans four times. There is no mercy for Jews, no one can help them even the German pure blood.

In Between Shades of Gray, this was heavily shown throughout the book by the terrible and hurtful conditions NKVD officers would put Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians through. In cattle cars passengers were given hardly any food, little water, and inedible soup. The soup was rather slouchy “The slop must resembled gray animal feed. Some children refused to eat it” (Chapter 13). There was barely any air to breathe because everyone was jammed together and the cars had only a few small windows, covered with bars. A hole in the floor served as a toilet. Some of the people, especially babies and children became sick immediately and died. The bodies of those who died on the journey were left on the side of the tracks. As described in the novel, “I saw NKVD throwing dead bodies off the train into the mud” (Chapter 17). Even if they are dead they are not respected as human being, they were threw away like broken things. Their infliction wasn’t stop there, after one month the train reached some Siberian center. The Soviets put their prisoners to work in deep snow, even as temperatures dropped to minus 45 degrees Celsius. Prisoners cut up trees and later lived in huts made from those tree branches. Sometimes it was so cold they awoke frozen to the ground. The prisoners work until they became “irritable and tired” (Chapter 48). Some deportees collapsed while the guards pushed the others along to another day of working. The collapsed prisoners were then left for dead somewhere behind in the wilderness. A full day of hard work was equal to 300 grams of bread. Weaker prisoners could only earn 100 grams of bread. “They were starving us and would probably dump us into the holes we dug” (Chapter 34), the NKVD only gave them small amount of food after working for hours. Because of that condition working prisoners shared their meager rations with those who could not work like the little children, the old and the injured. Their bodies were swollen and covered with boils caused by malnutrition. Their skin was inflamed by mosquito bites. The youngest children were affected the most by the harsh conditions and almost all of them were sick. Many of them died from starvation and disease. The elderly followed the children.

 4. Organization

Genocide requires a great deal of organization. Certain groups of people must be organized to achieve different facets of the genocide. The state usually organizes arms and financially supports the groups that conduct the genocide. During the Holocaust─ term for genocide under Hitler’s regime, the Nazi party was in Charge of Germany's government, as Hans Hubermann's son tried to convince him to join in the book. People who become the member of Nazi have financial support and who do not will live a bit poor than the member. Hans submitted the inquiries and applied to join the Nazy Party to support his family financially after his business went bankrupt, as portrayed in the book “ Well, Hans. Are you a member? “(181). It is concluded that when they join the Party they do not have to worry about their life because Hitler will cover their living costs. In The Book Thief, the children have to join the Hitler's Youth programs that both Liesel and Rudy join.

While in Between Shades of Gray, organization was shown by NKVD officers ordering Lithuanian, Latvians and Estonians into train cars to keep them separated. They were often in these train cars for extended periods of time. Sepetys described the organization by questioning the separation of man, woman and children in the novel, “Fathers, brothers, sons, husbands. Where were they all going? And where we going, a train car full of women, children, elderly, and infirmed?” (Chapter 17).

 5. Polarization

The two groups are driven even further apart by hateful propaganda and meetings. This is exhibited in The Book Thief during the book burning where not only are things supporting Judaism burned, but hateful things are yelled in the town square. Also at this stage interaction between the groups is unheard, and often can be punishable. When Hans gave a Jewish man a crust of bread, it might have been the death of him. He knew he would be punished for his little act of goodness, just like Liesel when she and Rudy littered the road with bread. The Nazi police soon came over and started whipping the 13 year-old girl, “all she received was a boot up the ass and fistful of words” to stay away from Jews. These can be the proof that any association with a Jew is unacceptable.

In the novel, Between Shades of Gray, there wasn't any evidence of polarization because they were taken away from their homes right when the book started. The book never showed a certain part of what their neighborhood was like.

 6. Preparation

Victims are identified in the genocide and separated from everybody else. Death lists are made and members of the victimized group are forced to wear symbols to be easily identified. In the holocaust, the Jewish people were taken and forced to wear yellow stars to show that they were Jews. Their way to the concentration camps is described in the book,  ”I have no idea where the convoy had traveled from, but it was perhaps four miles from Molching, and many steps more to the concentration camps at Dachau”(390).Liesel saw this happening as Jews would be marched through her home town towards concentration camps. 

In Between Shades of Gray, preparation shown by Stalin drafted lists of those he considered "anti-soviet". That included military personnel, doctors, lawyers, business owners, teachers, librarians, priests and children. Most of them are intelligent people, as described in the novel “We are intelligent, dignified people. That is why they have deported us” (Chapter 36).They all committed no crime at all but all were arrested. Then men were separated from the women. Men were sent to prison and the women to Siberia.

7. Extermination

When the group being discriminated against is systematically killed. This stage is not blatantly stated in The Book Thief, only implied by the time period. While in Between Shades of Gray Sepetys stated that, “there are hundreds sick and dead” (Chapter 84). People died from being overworked, injured, malnourished etc., but the intention wasn't death. All Stalin and his officers aimed for was the Lithuanian's, Estonian's and Latvian's pain and suffering.

 8. Denial

When the group formerly doing the discriminating denies all charges. This is not present in The Book Thief, and, in fact, is not entirely present in the actual Holocaust. On the other hand, Sepetys presented denial in Between Shades of Gray. In the Lithuanian genocide, many of the survivors would not speak anything about the genocide because they were scared of the Soviet's secret police hearing them tell their story, then being hurt again. In Between Shades of Gray, Lina buried a jar full of writings and drawings in 1954. In them she stated "The writings and drawings you hold in your hands were buried in the year 1954, after returning from Siberia with my brother, where we were imprisoned for twelve years. There are many thousands of us... speaking of the terrors we have experienced would result in our death." (Chapter 85). Ruta Sepetys only found out about the genocide after speaking with her family, which then encouraged her to write the historic novel, Between Shades of Gray.

In the case of The Book Thief, author Markus Zusak depicted the events of life in Europe during World War II through the lens of his parents’ experiences layered with his own imagination. His mother, Lisa, grew up in Germany while his father, Helmut, was raised in Austria. In an interview with Random House Kids, Zusak explained that he was inspired to write his novel because of “hearing stories of bombings” and imagining the struggle of having to get “up out of the ground in bomb shelters in Munich and Austria” (Random House Kids). Between Shades of Gray depicted the occupation of Soviet Union to Baltic States. Lithuania was an independent state, an independent country until it was brought to an end as the result to the agreement between the Nazis and the Soviet Union in 1939 which allowed the soviets to first occupy Lithuania momentarily and then join Lithuania to the Soviet Union, and build the new soviet republic. This all took place in the summer of 1940. There followed deportations, which were targeted deeply against people who with the new regime and who were thought to be dangerous like educated people. There were some deportations in 1940, but the biggest rave of deportation was in spring (June) of 1941. There were two ideas, by getting rid of these people, and the other was to take the people places where they could be economically exploited so like the labor camps, Cambackstad or Siberia (Klas-Göran Karlsson and Michael Schoenhals, 2008).

Not all of the 8 stages provided in the novels. In The Book Thief, Zusak did not provide any information about Extermination and Denial. While in Between Shades of Gray, Sepetys did not provide any information about Symbolization and Polarization. I assume that these happened because of author’s lack of information and different style of leadership from both leaders namely Hitler and Stalin.

Hitler and Stalin have different vision in doing genocide. Hitler murdered a lot of people who are not considered Aryan race. It can be described in The Book Thief  that he wanted to murder Jews because they are ‘rats’ and do not have pure Aryan race, even though they have German citizenship. On the other hand Stalin wanted to take over Baltic States include Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In Between Shades of Gray, Sepetys only described genocide in Lithuania. It is obvious that Stalin wanted Lithuanian to suffer a lot. These two books really mirroring the condition in 1939-1941 in Germany and Lithuania. The writers can also feel the pain and suffering that the Jews and Lithuanian felt at that time. Zusak and Sepetys expected that their readers would understand their portrayal of the historic events the way they did. That is exactly what happened. We all realized the major impact of the events in the novel and why they mattered.

 

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