How I deduced a few very home truths about Hitler's Germany

It's about a book thief named Liesel and several poor Germans living in Nazi Germany. In a way, this book offers a new perspective on the Germans while following the notorious extermination of 6 million Jews during that era.

Zusak is brilliant and has been highly praised by critics. He does not concentrate on the scenes of killing that we have become familiar with, but rather deals with the everyday life of a few Germans who could also be considered casualties of war.

The story begins in 1939, the year that Nazi Germany sparked World War II by invading Poland. While most Germans sided with Adolf Hitler, many families on Himmel Street in Munich were oblivious to the future, because they - including Liesel's foster family - remained mired in poverty. Food was scarce, and with all of the Jewish families driven out, business in the town could only be described as miserable. Even so, Liesel's family was hiding a Jew named Max in the basement, because Max's father had saved the life of Liesel's Papa in World War I.

In 1943, when the Allies were gathering strength and fighting back, bombs began falling more heavily on Germany, including on Himmel Street. And though Liesel and her foster parents did not go along with the Fuehrer's grand plan, they suffered dearly. Mama and Papa, along with others in the neighbourhood, died when bombs fell late one night while they were sleeping, because the warning sirens went off late. Hiding in the basement, Liesel was the only survivor.

Following the clash between the People's Alliance for Democracy and the Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship and later political developments, I kind of felt like Liesel.

Despite the goodness of her heart and the fact that Germany's going to war was not her fault, she suffered nonetheless. It does not matter that I support neither the PAD nor the DAAD; I suffer from the violence in Bangkok. And now, to me, it remains questionable if surviving the war was actually a good thing for Liesel. She survived, but most of her loved ones were gone. She remained, but a once-great nation was left in ruins.

Will my destiny mirror that of Liesel's? I don't know, but I would like to share with you what Death, the novel's narrator, says at the end: "I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race ... All I want to do is to tell the only truth I truly know.

"I am haunted by humans."