The Book Thief Chapter 49

Death's Diary: Cologne

• It's the night of May 30, 1942.
• One thousand bombers drop bombs on Köln (Cologne), Germany.
• Fifty thousand people are homeless.
• Five hundred people die. Death takes them, takes care of some more business, and then returns to Cologne.
• Some ten year old girls are amidst the rubble.
• One of them calls to her father, pointing at something in the sky.
• It's an empty fuel container.
• The bombers had dropped their empty fuel containers, and now the kids are looking for them excitedly.
• As kids pick up fuel containers, Death picks up bodies.
• And this is just the beginning of 1942.
• (For a video about the bombing of Cologne, click here.)