“To live. Living was living. The price was guilt and shame.” (Zusak 208) Max Vandenburg, the Jew that resided in the basement of 33 Himmel Street, had a rough life growing up in a country where being a Jew almost guaranteed persecution. His family pushed him out of the house when a Nazi soldier came to their house. Max felt guilt and shame for not going staying with his family and for becoming a burden to others, such as Walter and the Hubermanns. Max felt like he was being selfish by leaving other people behind and them coming to stay with other people and putting them in danger too (Zusak 218). Max left his family to be taken away and he was still living and putting more people in danger than just himself by letting them take of him and …show more content…
“‘What if he doesn’t wake up? What if he dies here, Hansi? Tell me. What in God’s name will we do with the body? We can’t leave him here, the smell will kill us… we can’t carry him out the door and drag him up the street either. We can’t just say, ‘You’ll never guess what we found in our basement this morning....’ They’ll put us away for good.’” (Zusak 329). If Max died a whole new set of issues would appear for the Hubermanns, he had to survive unless he wanted to cause the Hubermanns torture and suffering for concealing him in their house. Max had a huge burden on his shoulders, in the end though Max ran away leaving a note for Hans, Rosa and Liesel under a bridge. The note said “You’ve done enough.” (Zusak 398). He left the Hubermanns without a trace. He was later spotted in a Jewish parade to Dachau. Although Max left the Hubermanns to help lift a burden off their shoulders, he left them in a heap of guilt, especially when they saw him walking in the Jew parade. Max was never to be seen again until after the Himmel Street bombing, the end of World War Ⅱ and when Liesel was working at Alex Steiner's tailor