Analysis

Rudy and Liesel’s close friendship begins in this chapter, as well as Rudy’s long series of attempts to get Liesel to kiss him. Liesel begins to see more of how the Molching community has been affected by the Nazi Party, particularly by the destruction of Jewish homes and through the behavior of shopkeepers, like Frau Diller, who requires her customers to heil Hitler when they enter. Interestingly, Rudy’s hero is Jesse Owens, the African-American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, after which Hitler refused to shake Owens’s hand.