I’ve rediscovered recently that what we inherit is not always from a relative. I have particularly benefited from the inherited wisdom of one of my many excellent teachers. My sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Wolff, was profoundly committed to insuring that all of her students learned about the consequences of a lack of compassion for humanity by teaching us about the Holocaust 
during WWII. Since that year, I have been an avid reader of Holocaust literature. I think that one of the many draws of Holocaust literature came from the fact that I knew my mother’s parents were first and third generation German immigrants. This meant that I likely had distant relatives somewhere in Germany, some of whom may have lived through, or are decedents of those who’ve lived through, the war in Nazi Germany.
Having read the stories about many Jewish people who lived and died by the will of the Nazis, I struggled to understand how so many people of an entire nation and continent could be complacent while millions of people were murdered. Could their compassion have been so wholly absent? And I wondered, what role did my distant relatives play?
Until recently, the majority of the stories I read about the Holocaust were from the perspective of a Jewish individual or family, and this did little to settle my mind on this issue. On the recommendation of a friend, I recently picked up and quickly devoured Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. This was the first book of Holocaust Literature I’ve read that told the story of the war 
through the eyes of a non-Jewish, German family. It is the story of the Hubermann family who struggles to live in wartime Nazi Germany in a small village outside of Munich. The Hubermanns and their foster daughter Liesel struggle to survive on rations while trying to keep up appearances among their neighbors and with the local Nazi party who, it becomes clear, they do not agree with.
What was most striking about reading The Book Thief was how dedicated Zuzak was to showing the range of German society’s commitment to the Nazi Party through the microcosm of this small village. There were wealthy Germans who were probably able to take advantage of their political connections to maintain much of their pre-war lifestyle. There were also poor German citizens who struggled to have enough food to eat before the war and even more so during it. In between were merchant class, shop-owning Germans whose moderate wealth allowed them to commit themselves in varying degrees to the Nazi Party — but not without consequences. For example, Liesel’s best friend Rudy was offered a spot in a prestigious school for Hitler Youth. Rudy’s father, a well-known tailor in the village, had to make a difficult decision for his son and his family. Without giving away too many plot details, it became apparent that neither option was beneficial for Rudy’s family.
Ultimately, what was made real for me was the understanding that the social stratification that exists now was just as much of a factor in people’s actions in the past as the present. I found myself drawn to imagine how my distant relatives that had stayed behind in Germany might have fared through the war. Having read The Book Thief, I better understand the complexities of human action. It wasn’t that the German people were without compassion, but these compassionate acts had serious, potentially deadly consequences. I’m grateful for Mrs. Wolff’s contribution to my understanding of compassion and the interest in Holocaust literature that I inherited from her. Without that interest, it is possible that I would not have learned the power of literature in understanding my own family heritage.