Discussion questions for Children and Fire by Ursula Hegi

1. Does Thekla have principles?  If so, what are they?  Do they change throughout the book?  If so, how?
2. Did some of the metaphors seem too heavy-handed, as when Fräulein Siderova assigned herself the role of Cassandra when the students read The Iliad in 1933?
3. Do you think it was more important to Thekla to be a good teacher, to have her students love her, or to be able to protect them?  How did she try to protect them?  From what?
4. Thekla’s internal monologue is directed toward her former teacher, Fräulein Siderova, whose job she now holds.  Thekla seems to think that she has betrayed Fräulein Siderova in some way, or that Fräulein Siderova thinks she has.  What do you think?  Did Thekla betray her teacher?  If so, how?  Does Fraulein Siderova think Thekla betrayed her?  If so, in what way?
5. At the end of the novel, Thekla is determined to be more subversive in her lessons to her students?  Do you think she maintains this determination in the face of the consequences if the wrong person finds out?  Is it already too late for Thekla to sway her students?  Has she spent too much time making excuses for Hitler’s policies to be effective in now saying otherwise?
6. What is the significance of Schiller’s poem, The Diver?  Why did Thekla originally teach only up to the “happy” ending?  The full poem can be read here.
7. Have you read any of the other books in the Burgdorf cycle (Floating in My Mother’s Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau) or The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls, which focuses on Thekla’s grandmother, Lotte, in the Nordstrand?  If you have, how did this book fit into the picture formed from the other books?  If you haven’t, do you think you will now
8. Pointing out that Thekla has more understanding for the boys who want to join the Hitler-Jugend, likening it to the youth groups that she participated in as a child, than for their parents who want them to stay away, The Wall Street Journal’s reviewer says that, “Thekla’s attentiveness to the children’s needs only hurries them along to becoming Nazi accomplices.”  Do you think that’s true?  How do you think Thekla would respond to that statement?
9. Consider these three quotes.  What do they tell you about Thekla’s mindset throughout the course of the novel?
   1. “Most of her colleagues can’t separate propaganda from truth, but Thekla knows the difference, knows that being true to yourself doesn’t necessarily mean you are truthful…” (p. 154)
   2. “Thekla wonders if saying nothing means she’s expected to say yes to everyone from now on.” (p. 167)
   3. At the 1933 book burning: “Until now, she had taken for granted that she had moral courage, but suddenly she didn’t know if it was possible to defer moral outrage, conserve it, and if it would still be there for her, or if each moment like this would take her into another silent agreement, and another yet, until she’d find herself agreeing to what she’d never imagined, and she would have to adjust what she believed about herself.” (p. 234)

For more questions, check out the publisher’s resources.

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