A train in 1938, and a first theft at a grave

The story, the notes write, begins in 1938, when Hitler’s Nazi army was in full force. The girl Liesel and her younger brother take a train journey with their mother, to be adopted into a German household. On the way the brother dies of illness; Liesel and her mother get off the train and bury him. Without knowing what the book is, Liesel picks up a volume that had fallen by her brother’s grave and keeps it. It is a grave digger’s handbook, dropped by a cemetery keeper. That event, they write, is the first book theft. Those names and that year stay as the notes give them.

Rosa, an accordion, Rudy at the gate, and a name she cannot write

At the house that is to adopt her, Liesel feels uneasy before Rosa, a foster mother who looks cold — though in fact, they add, she is warm underneath — but she opens her heart thanks to Hans, a kindly foster father who treats her like a princess and welcomes her, the moment she wakes, with an accordion. Rudy, a boy of the same age in the neighbourhood, waits in front of the house so that they can walk to school together, and becomes a good friend. In the classroom the teacher tells her to introduce herself and to write her name on the board, but Liesel, who cannot write, is put to shame. Hans uses the grave digger’s handbook she picked up as a text, and teaches her to read and write. Rosa takes in laundry and, with the wages, barely keeps the household going. One day Liesel is sent to deliver finished laundry to the mayor’s house. The mayor’s wife, seeing that Liesel loves books, shows her into the study and lets her read whatever she likes. Each time she runs the errand she stays in the study and reads widely. Then, against the mayor’s opposition, both the laundry deliveries and the reading are stopped.

Max in the cellar, and books stolen to be read aloud

Here, they write, a part that should be watched carefully arrives. As the Nazi government’s persecution of Jews begins — the background of this film — Max, a Jew, the son of a man who had been a benefactor to the father Hans, comes to the house. Hans and Rosa hide him in the cellar. Liesel talks with Max about books, the weather, and news from outside the house. Then Max falls ill from the cold of the cellar and takes to his bed. Liesel reads to him; when there is no new book left to read, she secretly steals books from the mayor’s study and reads those aloud. Later Max comes to himself, rises, and says that he lived because Liesel read to him. In this way, they write, books play the part of an important medium in Liesel’s life. They do not name a novelist or a director. Those identifications stay as the notes give them. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. The notes, a student film reading of The Book Thief, with Liesel, Hans, Rosa, Rudy and Max, and a first stolen book in 1938, left as the notes name them.

Last updated: 15 November 2026