When the World Was Ours

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• mavo
• Leerjaar 4

SUMMARY

Three best friends forever linked by a moment in time, experience the horrors of the Holocaust. Leo Grunberg, Max Fischer and Elsa Bauer spend Leo's ninth birthday riding on Vienna's famous Ferris wheel, the Riesenrad. It's 1936 and the three are spending the day at the fairgrounds, afterwards eating sachertorte for Leo's birthday. During the Ferris wheel ride, Leo's papa takes a picture of all three friends in the carriage at the top. When Papa begins chasing and tickling the three, Leo trips over a lady's outstretched foot. Papa makes Leo apologize but the lady tells them in broken German that it is nothing to worry about. They learn that couple, Aileen and Eric Stewart are from England. When the ride ends, Papa is still in conversation with the English couple and he offers to pay for another ride. Leo's father learns that Eric Stewart is a dentist who is now late for his conference talk, so he invites the Stewarts to his home for Leo's birthday dinner.

A few weeks later, Max's father takes the three friends swimming at the Amalienbad. When Leo's father comes to the car to say hello, Mr. Fischer is not friendly. Max met Leo and Elsa when they started Volksschule together a few years ago. At that time, Leo's parents had invited the Fischers for dinner hoping to become friends, but that friendship had never really materialized. Despite Max's father's rudeness towards Leo's papa, they fun swimming and diving.

WHAT KIND OF CAKE DO THEY EAT FOR LEOS BIRTHDAY

1. SACHERTORTE
2. CARROT CAKE
3. APPELSTREUDEL
4. KASETAART

After the swim Max overhears his parents talking about Leo's father, "Shows you what they're all like, all of them. Making out they're on thing while underneath, they're another thing completely. Liars, the lot of them. Sneaky, nasty, dirty, rotten -- ..." Max doesn't understand why his father would think this of Leo's father whom everyone loves. When he tells his father he's going out to play with Leo and Elsa, his father becomes angry but is stopped by Max's mother from saying anything more. This leaves Max wondering what is so wrong with Leo and Elsa.

HOW DOES THE FATHER OF MAX DESCRIBE JEWISH PEOPLE?

One spring day in 1937, Elsa learns from her father Vati and her mother Mutti that they are leaving Vienna and moving to Czechoslovakia. This stunning development shocks Elsa who cannot understand why it is no longer safe for them to remain in Vienna. At the park that day, a tearful Elsa explains to Max that the country is no longer safe for Jews. But Max refuses to believe that being Jewish is dangerous. This news upsets Max terribly and tries not to cry. Instead, he gives Elsa a kiss as he realizes this will be the last time he sees her. When he returns home, Max tells his father that's he's spent time with Leo and Elsa. His father angrily forbids him from seeing them again, telling Max he's not to spend time with Jews

WHO IS MAX NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY WITH ANYMORE

1. JEWISH CHILDREN
2. LEO
3. ELSA
4. ALL OF THE ABOVE

In early 1938, Elsa and her family have settled into life in Prague, Czechoslovakia. She misses Max and Leo but Vati is working and Mutti seems happy. Then Vati announces that he is joining the army to fight off the Germans who are invading Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, in Vienna, Mr. Schmidt, the headmaster at Max and Leo's school, informs the students that mornings will now begin with the "Heil Hitler" greeting. He also tells the students whom he's just named and whom are all Jewish, that they will "...be treated like the lesser race you are! You will sit separately in lessons and assembly, at the back of the room.

What is the shocking thing the headmaster tells the children they must do?

Max and the other students are told they are not to interact with the Jewish students because they are "dirty and inferior" and that they must "...pretend they do not even exist". Max doesn't understand because he knows Leo is not dirty however, he instinctively moves away from his friend. This shocks Leo, who finds himself not allowed into class later on. Even worse, on his way home, Leo comes across his father and several other Jewish men being forced to scrub the pavement by Max's father who is now wearing a uniform with the Nazi swastika on his arm. Leo's father tells him to leave when he moves to help his father who is being kicked by Mr. Fischer. When Max arrives home, he learns that they are moving to Munich where is father is to be a senior SS officer. Although reluctant to leave, Max is hopeful that life in a new city will offer him a chance to start over. But what he doesn't know is that he will change in a way he never thought possible.

What awful thing does Leo see on his way home from school?

As the Nazis invade more countries and war consumes Europe, Max becomes increasingly drawn into the life of a young Nazi and taught to hate Jews. His rise through the Hitler Youth sees him sent to Auschwitz where he is forced to make a fateful choice. Meanwhile, Elsa and her family experience the occupation of Czechoslovakia and eventually are sent to the Jewish ghetto. As their rights and property are gradually stripped away, it isn't long before they are sent to Thereseinstadt. Eventually their family is sent to Auschwitz. For Leo and his mother, the chance encounter four years earlier on the Ferris wheel will end up saving their lives. War has separated the three friends but fate will bring two of them together in a tragic way

The Photograph

 In chapter one, which is told from Leo’s point of view, the joy and innocence of the day is evident. How does Leo reveal his innocence when he thinks, “Nothing would ever come between the three of us”? How does this line foreshadow what’s to come? Leo’s father, Mr. Grunberg, takes a photograph of the three best friends and later gives each child a copy as a token of the wonderful day they shared together. Discuss the significance of the photograph as it appears throughout the story. How does the photograph’s symbolism change for each child?

The Main Characters

The story is told from the perspectives of the three main characters: Leo, Elsa, and Max. Leo and Elsa are Jewish; Max is not. Why do you think the author chose to tell Leo’s and Elsa’s stories in the first person, while Max’s story is narrated in the third person?

Max and his father

When readers meet Max, it’s clear that he feels unloved by his father, a man who blames everyone for his troubles, rants and raves, and is obsessed with efficiency and discipline. Max adores Mr. Grunberg, Leo’s father: “He loved the way Mr. Grunberg made them all feel included, as though they were all part of the same gang. He couldn’t get enough of that feeling.” Discuss examples of how Max’s need to belong drives his fate. How does the emptiness inside Max make him susceptible to Nazi indoctrination?

Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is defined as hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people. Readers first get an inkling of Mr. Fischer’s anti-Semitic beliefs in chapter four, when he barely looks at or speaks to Mr. Grunberg. Mr. Fischer complains about Mr. Grunberg, saying, “‘He thinks he’s such a big shot. With his fine waistcoats and his shop—thinks he’s better than the rest of us. They all think that!’” Readers come to learn that he is referring to all Jewish people. Discuss Mr. Fischer’s use of the pronoun they. How is this broad categorization of a group of people dangerous? Later in the book, Mr. Fischer makes his anti-Semitism plain to Max, forbidding him to see Leo and Elsa: “‘Your friendship with people like them is over.’” Beyond the realization that he cannot see his friends again, why do his father’s words make Max feel physically ill?

Elsa

Elsa and her family move to Prague, Czechoslovakia, thinking they will be safe from the fear and humiliation they faced in Vienna. Shortly after the family settles into their new home, Elsa’s father, Vati, announces to the family that he is joining the army to fight the Nazis. He says, “‘What is that safety worth if we don’t fight to keep it?’” What do you think of Vati’s decision?

Leo

Discuss how Leo and the other Jewish children feel being singled out and humiliated by the headmaster at the special assembly. Give other examples of how the Nazi regime used humiliation and shaming to break the spirits of the Jewish people. How did physically separating the children and casting them as outsiders encourage the false narrative that Jews were the “lesser race”? After it’s made clear that non-Jewish students are to have absolutely no contact with their Jewish classmates, Max begins to pull away from Leo: “It didn’t even feel like a decision that he made. It was pure instinct.” What “instinct” could cause Max to abandon his best friend?

Kindness

Consider the book’s rare examples of kindness, such as the Stewarts’ sponsorship of Leo and his mother in England. How do the Nazis use fear to discourage people who might have wanted to help the Jews?

Elsa 

On the train ride to Auschwitz, Elsa, her family, and hundreds of others are packed into cattle cars with very little oxygen. Many do not survive the journey. The train makes stops along the way to discard the dead. After the first stop, people in the car begin to recite Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning. How is this act one of defiance, strength, and faith? How do these people demonstrate their solidarity in their Jewish identity? At Auschwitz, Elsa is forced to sleep on a narrow bunk with other people, so crowded that they have to move in unison during the night. Often Elsa will quietly reach across her body to touch her sleeve. Why does this small gesture calm Elsa, and what does it symbolize?

Why is Leo unhappy in England pg 167-168. And who becomes his friend on 169

What concentration camp is Elsa in on page 220 and who is she with

What is the 3rd best thing for Elsa there? pg 224

why does Max's heart hurt so moch on page 204?

What does Max's father make him burn? pg 205-207