The Librarian of Auschwitz

When the officers enter, Mengele sees a set of twins and orders them removed and handed over to him. Dita shuts her eyes and remembers home before the war: “She looks back with nostalgia at the happy child she used to be” (8). She remembers the smell of chicken soup signaling peace, and the day the Nazis invaded Prague. She was 9 years old. Now, five years later, she is standing in a provisional school in the largest death camp of the war, with the books nestled under her dress, terrified. If they find the books, they will execute her.

As these high-ranking members of the Nazi party inspect Block 31, Dita’s fellow prisoners stand in front her so the inspectors can’t see her. One of the officers, known as the Priest, wants to see Professor Morgenstern’s spectacles. No prisoner is allowed any personal items. When the Priest hands the glasses back to Morgenstern, the Professor drops them to the ground with a clatter. He apologizes profusely, and the Priest calls him a clumsy idiot. Finally, the Priest eyes Dita. Unlike the others, she is not standing at attention but appears to be clutching something. He is about to say something to her when the Professor speaks up. Acting like he’s insane, he asks the Priest a series of absurd questions. This takes the focus off Dita. After the distraction, the Priest and Mengele leave. Dita sighs with relief.

Dita and her family have arrived on the December transport, along with Miriam Edelstein, a good friend of Hirsch’s. Miriam’s husband, Yakub, was a Jewish leader in the ghetto. When the ghetto was liquidated, he was sent to the political prisoner’s camp, Auschwitz I, notorious for the torture and killing of Jews.

After the inspection is over, Fredy Hirsch commends Dita for her courage. As she puts the books away, she lovingly looks at them; a Russian grammar, a novel by HG Wells, and others. For Dita, there is one book that intrigues her, The Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk. Fredy tells her it is not an appropriate book for her, but Dita protests. She says, “[D]o you honestly believe that after observing on a daily basis thousands of people going to the gas chambers […] what I might read in a novel might shock me?” (28).

Fredy teaches Dita about the “living books.” These are really the teachers themselves, who tell the stories of their favorite books to their students, thus keeping literature alive through an oral tradition. 

Margit is Dita’s best friend. The two girls meet before curfew and gossip. They often talk about the cute boys around them. They both share their experiences trying to find a place to sleep since all the bunks were occupied when they first arrived. Dita shares a bunk with a woman who never tells Dita her name and never speaks to her. Margit’s mother is dead, but her father and sister are still alive. Both of Dita’s parents are still alive.

Later, as Dita walks back to her sleeping hut, she senses a nervous energy in the air; “A dark shadow, darker than all the rest” (38) is moving about the area. Then Mengele appears. As he nears her, he stops and tells Dita he has been looking for her. She grows cold and afraid. He says he will be watching her. He then describes a gruesome surgery he’s performed, discussing it in brutal, animated detail. She can’t sleep that night, terrified about what he will do to her. When she thinks about what it’s like being a child, she scoffs out loud, thinking, “You have to have a childhood to be a child” (41).

When Dita is with her mother, she often reflects on the past. Her story is very much like everyone else’s story: Jews are forced to wear a yellow star sewed to their clothing; children are taken from schools; fathers are forced to quit their professions and take on menial labor; college students must leave universities. Then come the ration cards, no entry into cafés or theaters. Books are outlawed, and if anyone is caught with one, they will be shot. Whenever she would complain about the increasing losses in their lives, her mother would say “It’s the war, Dita, it’s the war” (42). One thing that bothers Dita is whenever some new hardship arises, her mother just puts a pleasant smile on her face and complies.

Dita meets Fredy Hirsch for the first time when the Nazis remove them from their home and send them to the Terezín ghetto. After his father dies, Fredy joins the JDP, which is like a Boy Scouts for Jewish boys. He is extremely athletic and intelligent. Soon, he becomes an athletics teacher in the free world, then later in the ghetto. Dita watches him and his charges as they practice their sports. While in the ghetto, she has her first kiss from a boy named Erik, and she feels joy, despite the horror of her circumstances. 

Back at Auschwitz, Rudi Rosenberg, who is 19 years old, has earned the job of registrar. He works for the SS, keeping track of each prisoner by their name and prison number. Such a job allows him to wear comfortable civilian clothes. He is granted extra food and the privilege of more freedom around the camp despite being a Jew. What the Nazis don’t know is that he is a member of the resistance, a group of men who plan escapes and gather information for potential uprisings. One day after work, Rudi meets the other resistance leaders, and they all puzzle over the presence of the family camp. They don’t understand why it’s there, and they know that in six months, there will be a “special treatment” for the September transport—the people who came in September and were brought to Block 31. They don’t understand this but think the worst: that the camp will be liquidated, and everyone who arrived in September will be killed.

Another member of the resistance, Schmulewski, arrives to the meeting. He is sometimes called Schlomo. The other men know he works in the special operations unit. This unit prepares Jews for their deaths in the gas chambers. Schlomo tells his fellow resistance fighters that after their horrendous ride in the stuffed trains, (where hundreds die), the Jews are ushered to this unit, where they must remove their clothes and have their hair cut. The Nazis tell them that they are going to take a shower to be de-liced. Schlomo can barely tell the others what he sees, asking for God’s forgiveness with each sentence. The Nazis are clever with their psychology; they “get them to hang their clothes on hooks and even tell them to take note of the number of the hook so they can retrieve their clothes afterwards” (55). Of course, the showers are actually a gas chamber, and they all die instead. All the men in the resistance who work for the SS are Jews, and Dita is curious about them, but also afraid. If they are found out, they will be executed in front of everyone.

Dita wants to put the books out during the class days so everyone can see them. Later, after class has ended, the assistant director tells Dita that he knows Fredy and can predict that he will not permit her to put the books out. She laughs to herself because she has learned that no one can predict anything at Auschwitz: “Lichtenstein is wrong,” she thinks. “Here no one knows anyone” (66).

Dita and Professor Morgenstern have a conversation. The professor seems both agitated and mildly insensible. He explains that sometimes when she gives him a book to read, he forgets he has it. They both share a love for books. He tells her, “Books know everything” (69).

Later, when Dita meets Margit, she tells her best friend about Mengele. Both girls are struck by fear. As they talk, a third friend, Renee, walks up to them. She tells them that there is a guard who keeps staring at her. Margit and Dita make jokes about the situation, but then they see how scared their friend is. As they talk, another corpse, a sight they see frequently, is hauled out of the men’s hut. The girls glance at the body being whisked away but continue talking. Margit challenges Dita for not being afraid. Dita tells Margit that of course she is always scared. But she says. “I just don’t go around trumpeting it” (72).

As the chapter ends, Dita considers the threat from Mengele and believes it is her duty to tell Hirsch that Mengele has threatened to watch her every move. She considers herself to be an honest and upright person and realizes she has no right to “hide the facts from him” (74). She understands that he might take the job away from her, and that makes her sad, but her conscience won’t allow her to keep it a secret. 

Rudi Rosenberg meets Hirsch at one of the fences that divides the prison. Hirsch and Rosenberg are distrustful of each other. Rudi isn’t sure whether Hirsch is an informant for the SS and is only posing as a Zionist, and Hirsch doesn’t quite trust the resistance. Hirsch tells Rosenberg that the guards have deeded a portion of empty space to the school. Rosenberg is distrustful and wonders what the Nazis want with the camp.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rudi spots a beautiful girl. Her name is Alice. She has lingered by the fence to meet with Rudi so she can ask him for some pencils. She tells him that in the school, they have to make pencils, and they only last for a little while. Rudi and Alice are clearly attracted to each other. They agree to meet at the fence the following day. Rudi says he will bring her pencils.

Later that day in school, Fredy lectures to the teenagers about the Jewish concept of aliyah, which he describes as a march to Palestine; the Jewish homeland. He explains that aliyah is as much a physical act of migrating to Palestine as it is a spiritual one. “If you carry out aliyah and undertake the march of our ancestors, that light will go on […] and brighten you within” (81).

Dita goes to her hiding place in the school and reads a book. She reminisces about the past. On her last birthday, she received a pair of used shoes, not the new ones she had hoped for. She was disappointed and unable to hide her disappointment from her parents. She remembers reading The Citadel and identifying with the story and the characters.

She falls asleep in the hiding spot, and when she wakes up, she thinks she is all alone, but then she sees Hirsch speaking with a man who is dressed incognito. Hirsch tells the man he worries about being caught. Dita does not know what the context is, but when the man leaves Hirsch’s office, she sees he’s wearing the black shoes of an SS guard. For the first time, she feels real fear. As the siren rings for curfew, Dita wonders if her beloved Hirsch is a Nazi collaborator. She is devastated by the prospect. 

Dita returns to the past. She remembers Terezín, the ghetto where she and thousands of Jews were sent to live just before their final destination of Auschwitz. It was crowded, but still alive with Jewish culture. It was there that she met the librarian and accompanied her on her rounds, delivering and picking up borrowed books.

One day, as she accompanies the librarian, she runs into Fredy again for the first time in years. Fredy is actively involved in the fledgling Zionist movement, and Dita admires him. When he asks her if she wants to join the group, she demurs. She is attracted to the idea but is also afraid of proclaiming herself a Zionist.  

As she reminisces, she lies in her bunk next to the woman who never speaks. She worries about what she overheard between Hirsch and the Nazi. Nothing makes sense. She realizes again how in the death camps you can never really know anything or anyone. Reality and the truth are elusive.