Punishment
- Death says that everybody in Nazi Germany gets some kind of punishment.
- Those who survive are punished with "poverty and guilt when the war is over and six million discoveries were made throughout Europe" (63.1).
- (Six million is the generally accepted number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Other groups and individuals considered "different" were also targeted, including Gypsies, homosexual people, and disabled people.)
- Hans wants to be punished.
- His punishment: the approval of his application to the Nazi party, and his conscription into the German Army.
- Liesel's hand tremble as she reads the words on the letter informing him.
- Later Liesel will wonder how many other men, like Hans and like Rudy's father, got letters like this.
- It shows that Germany is desperate, running out of soldiers.
- Later she will look at the sky and describe it to an imaginary Max Vandenburg.
- A week later, Alex Steiner gets a letter like Hans'.
- His punishment for not giving them his son.