Max

Max Vandenburg

A 23-year-old Jew who hides from the Nazis in the Hubermanns' basement. Max was a fist-fighter growing up, and as a teenager he resolves not to die without a fight. Max is wracked with anguish and guilt over leaving his family to save himself, but he comes to befriend Liesel as the two share their respective nightmares. Their friendship grows very deep, and Liesel reads to Max every night when he falls comatose. Max makes two books for Liesel, both of which involve thinly-veiled allegories about their friendship and Nazi Germany: an illustrated story called "The Standover Man," and a long book of sketches that includes the short story "The Word Shaker." Max leaves the house after Hans gives an old Jew being marched to a concentration camp a piece of bread in public. Liesel later sees him among such a procession, on his way to Dachau. Max survives the camp, however, and reunites with Liesel shortly after the war's end.