The last section to this book is definitely the most saddening and emotion-wrenching part since it brings up the two forms of guilt that Michael felt towards knowing Hanna; the first form was the guilt he felt for loving a criminal who had murdered survivors of a concentration camp and the second form of guilt was felt since he had betrayed his criminal lover by ignoring her and leaving her to bear the long years of exile alone and without any form of comfort from the outside world. It is my personal belief that, though he was trying to escape the guilt by sending her cassette tapes but not writing to her, he was wrong to not write at least to provide her with a reason to continue trudging along. Instead, she held on for several years till she realized that he would no longer acknowledge her letters and instead, ignore her success in learning how to read and write which she most likely was doing for Michael out of love. Ironically enough, Michael did actually care how Hanna was faring and had not lost his feelings of love for her even though he admitted publicly that he did. It made me very sad though that it took Hanna's death for Michael to finally admit that he was wrong in ignoring her and had never actually lost his love for her and the fact that he realizes at the end that it was he who caused her to hang herself since she was all alone in the world.
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