Max Vandenburg Quotes

THE LAST WORDS OF MAX VANDENBURG: You've done enough.

If your eyes could speak, what would they say

Max," she said. He turned and briefly closed his eyes as the girl continued. There was once a strange, small man,"she said. Her arms were loose but her hands were fists at her side. "But there was a word shaker,too." One of the Jews on his way to Dachau had stopped walking now. He stood absolutely still as the others swerved morosely around him, leaving him completely alone. His eyes staggered, and it was so simple. The words were given across from the girl to the Jew. They climbed on to him. The next time she spoke, the questions stumbled from her mouth. Hot tears fought for room in her eyes as she would not let them out. Better to stand resolute and proud. Let the words do all of it. "Is it really you? the young man asked," she said. " Is it from your cheek that I took the seed.?" Max Vandenburg remained standing. He did not drop to his knees. People and Jews and clouds all stopped. They watched. As he stood, Max looked first at the girl and then stared directly into the sky who was wide and blue and magnificent. There were heavy beams-- planks of son-- falling randomly, wonderfully to the road. Clouds arched their backs to look behind as they started again to move on. "It's such a beautiful day," he said, and his voice was in many pieces. A great day to die. A great day to die,like this. Liesel walked at him. She was courageous enought to reach out and hold his bearded face. "Is it really you,Max?" Such a brilliant German day and its attentive crowd. He let his mouth kiss her palm. "Yes, Liesel, it's me," and he held the girl's hand in his face and cried onto her fingers. He cried as the soldiers came and a small collection of insolent Jews stood and watched.

***CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM*** MAX VANDENBURG Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.

In the basement of 33 Himmel Street, Max Vandenburg could feel the fists of an entire nation. One by one they climbed into the ring to beat him down. They made him bleed. They let him suffer. Millions of them--until one last time, when he gathered himself to his feet...

The juggling comes to an end now, but the struggling does not. I have Liesel Meminger in one hand, Max Vandenburg in the other. Soon I will clap them together. Just give me a few pages.

For Liesel Meminger, the early stages of 1942 could be summed up like this: She became thirteen years of age. Her chest was still flat. She had not yet bled. The young man from her basement was now in her bed. ***Q&A*** How did Max Vandenburg end up in liesel's bed? He fell.

Thank you. For Max Vandenburg, those were the two most pitiful words he could possibly say, rivaled only by I'm sorry. There was a constant urge to speak both expressions, spurred on by the affliction of guilt.

She walked down the basement steps. She saw an imaginary framed photo seep into the wall - a quiet-smiled secret. No more than a few meters, it was a long walk to the drop sheets and the assortment of paint cans that shielded Max Vandenburg. She removed the sheets closest to the wall until there was a small corridor to look through. The first part of him she saw was his shoulder, and through the slender gap, she slowly, painfully, inched her hand in until it rested there. His clothing was cool. He did not wake. She could feel his breathing and his shoulder moving up and down ever so slightly. For a while, she watched him. Then she sat and leaned back. Sleepy air seemed to have followed her. The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed. German and Jewish lungs.

You could argue that Liesel Meminger has it easy. She did have it easy compared to Max Vandenburg. Certainly, her brother practically died in her arms. Her mother abandoned her. But anything was better than being a Jew.

He had what he called just a small ration of tools: A painted book. A handful of pencils. A mindful of thoughts. Like a simple puzzle, he put them together.

Standing above him at all moments of awakeness was the hand of time, and it didn't hesitate to wring him out. It smiled and squeezed and let him live. What great malice there could be in allowing something to live.

A fact regarding Max Vandenburg He would search the faces on Munich street for a book-thieving girl.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM MAX VANDENBURG “Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.

Come on, Max,' she whispered, and even the sound of Mama's arrival at her back did not stop her from silently crying. It didn't stop her from pulling a lump of salt water from her eye and feeding it onto Max Vandenburg's face. Mama took her. Her arms swallowed her. 'I know',she said. She knew.

You hide a Jew. You pay. Somehow or other, you must.

The last words of Max Vandenburg - You've done enough.

The juggling comes to an end now, but the struggling does not. I have Liesel Meminger in one hand, Max Vandenburg in the other. Soon, I will clap them together. Just give me a few pages. The

Sometimes there was humor in Max Vandenburg’s voice, though its physicality was like friction—like a stone being gently rubbed across a large rock. It was deep in places and scratched apart in others, sometimes breaking off altogether. It was deepest in regret, and broken off at the end of a joke or a statement of self-deprecation.

They sat a few meters apart, speaking very rarely, and there was really only the noise of turning pages (…) Where Hans Hubermann and Erik Vandenburg were ultimately united by music, Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words. "Hi, Max." "Hi, Liesel." They would sit and read.

Can you see that this enemy has found its ways—its despicable ways—through our armor, and that clearly, I cannot stand up here alone and fight him?” The words were visible. They dropped from his mouth like jewels. “Look at him! Take a good look.” They looked. At the bloodied Max Vandenburg. “As we speak, he is plotting his way into your neighborhood. He’s moving in next door. He’s infesting you with his family and he’s about to take you over. He—” Hitler glanced at him a moment, with disgust. “He will soon own you, until it is he who stands not at the counter of your grocery shop, but sits in

Look at him! Take a good look.” They looked. At the bloodied Max Vandenburg. “As we speak, he is plotting his way into your neighborhood. He’s moving in next door. He’s infesting you with his family and he’s about to take you over. He—” Hitler glanced at him a moment, with disgust. “He will soon own you, until it is he who stands not at the counter of your grocery shop, but sits in the back, smoking his pipe. Before you know it, you’ll be working for him at minimum wage while he can hardly walk from the weight in his pockets. Will you simply stand there and let him do this? Will you stand by as your leaders did in the past, when they gave your land to everybody else, when they sold your country for the price of a few signatures? Will you stand out there, powerless? Or”—and now he stepped one rung higher—“will you climb up into this ring with me?

Naturally, Liesel hurried up the stairs. She stood a few feet from the spit-stained door and turned on the spot, observing the sky. When she returned to the basement, she told him. “The sky is blue today, Max, and there is a big long cloud, and it’s stretched out, like a rope. At the end of it, the sun is like a yellow hole. . . .” Max, at that moment, knew that only a child could have given him a weather report like that. On the wall, he painted a long, tightly knotted rope with a dripping yellow sun at the end of it, as if you could dive right into it. On the ropy cloud, he drew two figures—a thin girl and a withering Jew—and they were walking, arms balanced, toward that dripping sun. Beneath the picture, he wrote the following sentence. THE WALL-WRITTEN WORDS OF MAX VANDENBURG It was a Monday, and they walked on a tightrope to the sun.