Hope is a virtue defined as the desire and search for a future good, which is difficult but not impossible to attain with confidence. With hope, spirits are lifted, hearts are refreshed and optimism is reborn. So is the story of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland trying to survive the horrors of the German atrocities surrounding them; incredibly surviving while facing illness, starvation, and the fear of death and deportation, and barely struggling to find a reason to live. Eager to combat and unable to ignore the devastating depression within the ghetto, Jakob the Liar by Jurek Becker tells the tale of Jakob Heym who puts himself at danger by suggesting that he owns a radio, forbidden inside the ghetto. Fabricating news of German defeats, Jakob strives to keep hope and humor alive among the Jews held in the ghett
“There is no medicine people need as much as hope,” (164) says one character in this book, and that is what Jakob Heym proves in this story about hope and survival. Jakob tries to make use of the very last possibility, optimism, to prevent the Jews from giving up the struggle and just dying. Unable to survive as individuals, the people must join together at least with hope and confidence, founded primarily on the false belief that there exists a prohibited radio within the ghetto. Only by placing their confidence on hope are they able to survive.
o. And so the question may be asked, how can this little fib cause the inhabitants of the ghetto to resist death and endure so much distress?
“I have a radio!” exclaims Jakob to his friend, “The Russians are within twelve miles of Bezanika!” (20). And s
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