A moment of peace, is worth every war behind us

I hate books about the Holocaust. I just don't understand the whole thing. How could this have happened? What kind of crazy group-think catastrophe was this? Another thing about a Jewish person is it is not about race but ethnicity, right? How do you know if someone is Jewish? Just by their last name? Some people look more Jewish than others I guess. The whole thing is so lame, there is not a word to describe it. It seems crazy that this happened and only 65 some odd years ago.

As sad as it all is, that is a small reason that I don't like reading about the Holocaust. It is 5% that and 95% about the guilt I start to feel about my life and our life and the way we live now. We are so blessed and so not humble about it in general. It sickens me the things we have.

This book I am reading now is about a girl who loves books. She got a book for Christmas and it was the greatest gift she had ever received. A book. Not a new truck or a new flat-screen TV or a Tickle me Elmo, just a book. I really liked this part of "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak, p. 134:

... the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books. Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving. There were all different sizes and styles of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the grey, the every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Leisel Meminger had ever seen.
With wonder, she smiled.
That such a room existed!
Even when she tried to wipe the smile away with her forearm, she realized instantly that it was a pointless exercise.
There was more silence than she ever thought possible. It extended like an elastic, dying to break. The girl broke it.
"Can I?"
The two words stood among acres and acres of vacant, wooden, floored land. The books were miles away.
Yes, you can.
Steadily, the room shrank, till the book thief could touch the shelves within a few small steps. She ran the back of her hand along the first shelf, listening to the shuffle of her fingernails gliding across the spinal cord of each book. It sounded like an instrument, or the notes of running feet. She used both hands. When she eventually stopped and stoood in the middle of the room, she spent many minutes looking from the shelves to her fingers and back again.
How many books had she touched?
How many books had she felt?
She walked over and did it again, this time much slower, with her hand facing forward allowing the dough of her palm to feel the small hurdle of each book. It felt like magic, like beauty, as bright lines of light shone down from a chandelier. Several times, she almost pulled a title from its place but didn't dare distrub them. They were too perfect.