30
Though likely operating at a subconscious level here, Hans’ awareness of staging conformity as a way of protecting his family from external suspicion reaches a point of conscious crisis when he agrees to harbour a Jewish man, Max Vandenburg, in his basement. Max is the son of Hans’ late friend, a German Jewish man named Erik whom Hans served alongside during the First World War. After a tactful lie Erik told prevented Hans from going into battle on the day the rest of his platoon was killed, Hans promises his friend’ s widow that‘ if there’ s anything you ever need’, 68 he will help her. This need eventually manifests in the form of concealing her son to safeguard him from persecution by the Nazi regime. When Max arrives at 33 Himmel Street, Hans’ instinctive response is to restrict all external visibility to within the house. He‘ checked that the curtains were properly closed. Not a crack could be showing’, 69 similarly to how curtains in theatre productions close to allow the actors time to position themselves and the set without disturbing the audience’ s immersion in the performance. Considering the consequences individuals faced for sheltering Jewish people, Hans’ reaction here is understandable; in her essay on Germans who assisted the Jewish community in Nazi Germany, historian Frances Henry asserts how initially‘ subtle means were instituted to humiliate those Germans who kept up a connection with the Jews’. 70 Following the establishment of the Nuremberg Laws on 15 September 1935( which aimed to instigate an immediate segregation between the Jewish community and the rest of society), the punishments escalated to the point where‘ aiding and abetting Jews was deemed traitorous and cause for arrest of both helpers and their families’. 71 It is 1940 when Hans accepts Max into his home, so it can be assumed that Hans’ reaction to close the curtains stems from the knowledge that the sighting of a Jewish man would lead to, at best, the incarceration of not only Max, but himself, his wife, and his foster daughter also – at worst, and the most likely outcome, their executions.
Nazi Germany’ s systems of surveillance, however, were designed to detect even minor deviations to an individual’ s routine. Sudden changes – such as permanently drawn curtains – would serve as a clear indication that an individual or
68
Zusak, The Book Thief, 193.
69
Ibid., 200.
70
Frances Henry,“ Heroes and Helpers in Nazi Germany: Who Aided Jews?”, Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 13, no. 1 / 2( 1985): 309, https:// www. jstor. org / stable / 23262671.
71
Ibid.