The Librarian of Auschwitz, Antonio Iturbi, Dita Kraus, authors; Lilit Thwaites, translator; Marisa Calin, Dita Kraus, narrators
In March of 1939, Dita Adler’s life changed. She was only nine years old at the time and a very happy, only child. She lived in Prague, Czechoslovakia, with her parents. She remembers the square with its famous clock, in a time of peace, before the Germans invaded. The setting seemed ideal. Then in March of 1939, Hitler’s troops entered the city. Different flags flew, street names changed, soldiers appeared in the streets, and race laws were enacted. The normal daily life for the Jews was slowly modified until they lost the ability to move about freely in public spaces, parks, libraries, and schools. They could not use public transportation, could only shop in certain stores at certain times, could not work and could not fraternize with anyone that wasn’t Jewish. Carefully and deviously, they were removed from the public sphere of protection and were essentially erased from memory unless thought of as pariahs. Those who helped them were arrested and their families were placed in grave danger. Thus, few helped them. The slippery slope enveloped the lives of the Jews and what was, at first, just one or two simple rules to follow, somehow morphed slowly into an altered universe with yellow stars on their clothing, their belongings confiscated and mass roundups of all Jews as Hitler proceeded with his plan to annihilate all of them, in the countries he conquered. It was his Final Solution. The propaganda was hateful and so people also became hateful and suddenly hated and feared the Jews.
Dita Adler was moved from place to place with her family. First they had to give up their own home and could not take all of their belongings with them. Then they were forced to live with multiple families in small spaces, with no privacy. Then they were sent to labor camps where they were worked to death, starved, experimented upon, and/or murdered systematically. Their world was governed by human “monsters”. Why did the Jews go to the slaughter so meekly, one asks? They thought “it was just the war”, it would soon be over”. They could not comprehend the horror that faced them, nor could most of the other heads of state in the rest of the world, so, little was done to prevent the horror from spreading like wildfire, taking with it million and millions of innocent victims. Hitler’s dream to create the Thousand Year Reich was a nightmare for everyone else involved.
When Dita and her family were sent to Terezin, the model Nazi camp, set up purposely to fool the inspectors, life was different, but manageable. When they were sent to the family camp of Auschwitz, they were not subjected to the same abuse of other arriving Jews, and were allowed to remain together, but they realized that this was not the resettlement promised; no one was fooled any longer. They were poorly dressed, in insufficient housing with little hygiene, and hardly fed. Disease spread in the crowded quarters and in the mornings, the dead were removed. From there they were sent to Bergen Belsen and left to die. There was no hygiene, no bed of any sort and little food. In the face of all the hardship, Jews fought to maintain discipline and decorum. They practiced what good hygiene they could. They created schools in the hope that the children would have a future. They created a library. In their quiet way, they defied Hitler and survived.
This novel is based on Dita’s story, and her experiences are very real and nightmarish. However, the novel is also embellished with the author’s imagination. Still, in fact, it lauds several unsung heroes that fought to maintain dignity, education and normalcy in a place where dignity did not exist, books were forbidden and the word normal no longer had meaning. A student of the Holocaust will recognize many of the names that are mentioned, like Dr. Mengele and Freddy Hirsch whose cause of death in the book is different than the popular belief, but seems to have plausibility after reading the book. Much of the book is really about the day to day effort of Dita Adler, who worked with Hirsch to protect the few precious books of the “library” of sorts, books that the camp prohibited, but the victims salvaged and protected with their lives. The different ways designed to use and hide the forbidden books were ingenious. There are no adequate words, nor will there ever be, to describe the Holocaust and those that supported it. None can do justice to the moment in history when those devils prevailed. There is no way to ever recognize or pay homage to all the innocent souls who suffered under this reign of terror, except to keep their memories alive with books, books that reveal the horror so that we recognize the danger of it recurring and work to prevent it. Books and knowledge are the very keys to humanity’s salvation.
The cover design is pretty, but its youthful appeal may lock out a significant audience. It begs the question, is it a YA novel or an adult novel? It could be both. Regardless, the novel really informs the reader about the family camp at Auschwitz/Birkenow which existed for only 6 months and provided a semblance of normalcy in an unreal and unimaginable world. Why was it destroyed six months after it was created? Was it set up to fool the world as scholars speculate? Was Freddy Hirsch’s death a suicide as ruled? We may never know, but we must also never forget. Jews were chosen, and they need to be proud of that and their many accomplishments. That is what Jews should be remembered for. Hitler and his thugs wanted to murder and/or eliminate as many Jews as they could before the war ended, because in truth, the Nazis were the worst kind of human beings, failures in any other walk of life, they rose through the ranks of the National Socialist Party. Thank G-d, they failed and Jews thrive today.

A must know unbelievable true story but gut wrenching… not the best choice for a December read… but powerful.