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Mercedes Stanek

Mrs. Valentic

English 9 Honors

17 February 2017

Similarities and Differences in Writing

When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it

by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed

out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternitys certain breadth(Markus

Zusak). The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, is a novel that takes place during World War II; the

novel focuses on the life and challenges of Liesel Meminger as she steals books throughout the

Holocaust. In The Book Thief and Auschwitz Shifts From Memorializing to Teaching by

Michael Kimmelman, both aim to educate their readers about the Holocaust. There are many

similarities and differences in the ways the two inform their readers.

One of the major differences between the two excerpts is the way the authors present

their information. In the article about the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, information about

the Holocaust and its victims is directly provided through reading. One of the many examples of

this is when the excerpt from the article talks about the amount of people killed. ...also stressed

the sheer scale of killing at a time when the world still didnt comprehend(Kimmelman). This

quote shows an example of when the article comes out and tells information such as stating there

was a mass amount of killing going on. However, in The Book Thief, it is only implied that a

great amount of civilians were killed. Death, the narrator of The Book Thief, states They just

kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower This quote from Death implies that
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the Nazis kept killing over and over again, but Death does not say it say directly unlike

Kimmelmans article.

Contradictorily, there are also some similarities between the two excerpts. For example,

one similarities is the subject matter in both of the excerpts. In both excerpts, the authors talk

about real events that occurred during or at the same as the Holocaust. Zusak states, On June 23,

1942, there was a group of French Jews in a German prison, on Polish soil(Zusak). This quote

refers to an actual event that occurred during the Holocaust. Kimmelman states, former barracks

of the Polish army camp that the Nazis seized and converted into prisons and death chambers.

Similar to Zusak, this quote is an example of Kimmelman referring to a real life event in his

article. Another similarity between the excerpts is that they both refer directly to the actual

events of the Holocaust. Both The Book Thief and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum talk

about real life events and provide evidence as to what really happened. Although the evidence in

The Book Thief is not as clear as it could be.

Both The Book Thief and Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum use both similar and

different ways of informing the audience of the events of the Holocaust. Although they present

their information differently, they both present accurate information and effectively inform their

audiences.