The Librarian of Auschwitz

Every day after school, Dita walks outside. One day, when she runs into Margit and Renee, she can tell that Renee is upset. Renee and Margit tell Dita that the German soldier is still staring at her. Margit is more specific about the way he stares at Renee. She says, “I think he wants to have sex with Renee” (117). Renee is scandalized but knows it’s true. She is upset and shivering. To calm them, Dita makes a hopscotch, and though her friends protest that they are too old for hopscotch, they happily play the game.

Dita hurries to meet her father, who acts as her school teacher. Today, he teaches Dita a geography class. He also teaches her Math and Latin. As she hurries back to school, she thinks about her father and how sad it was the day the schools were closed to Jewish children.

She studies with her father for a little while, but her mother tells them it is too cold, and dinner will be ready soon. Every meal consists of watery turnip soup and a crust of bread. Dita asks her parents who the most trustworthy people at the camp might be. Secretly, she wants to tell someone about Hirsch and see if they know what is happening. Her parents tell her that Mrs. Turnovksá and Mr. Tomášek are the most scrupulous people they know.

Her mother is worried. She tells Dita, “Your grandmother used to say that the only ones who speak the truth are children and madmen” (121). This makes Dita think of Professor Morgenstern, who is known to be crazy. She heads back to the school to tend to the books and sees him folding another origami bird. She wants to know from him if she can trust Hirsch. The professor tells her that, in that place, you can trust no one: “God silenced our thoughts so that only we can hear them” (123). He warns her that everyone has their secrets and that he only trusts his best friend; his best friend is himself.

Dita hurries back before curfew to her hut. As she walks, she watches for Mengele but never sees him. She crawls onto the hard bunk, where she sleeps and decides that the next day she will speak with Mr. Tomášek about Hirsch. 

The following day, a high-level delegation visits Auschwitz-Birkenau. It includes Major Rudolph Höss, Adolf Eichmann, Schwarzhuber, the man responsible for creating the death camps, and Mengele. Fredy is tasked with telling the men what Block 31 is. He speaks in his native German tongue. At one point, Dita looks up and sees Mengele staring at her blankly. Dita thinks they all look as though they are very important—too important—to speak to bugs like the Jews.

After that, the point of view changes, and readers are taken inside the mess tent where Rudolph Höss and Adolph Eichmann have lunch. When the Jewish waitress arrives, Höss puts his gun to her head. She stands still with no expression. Höss makes a joke by saying: “She’s thanking god” (127). Eichmann is mildly disgusted by Höss, who has been relieved of his position as commander of Auschwitz due to some financial irregularities. Eichmann has much to do: “Killing Jews is serious work as far as he’s concerned” (127). Later on, in that year, (1944) Eichmann is told by Himmler to end The Final Solution, since the Germans are facing defeat, but Eichmann doesn’t want to stop. He goes “on ordering massive exterminations right to the bitter end” (28).

Dita sees kind-hearted Mr. Tomášek. She tries to catch up to him but sees him walking to the clothing hut. This is curious because Jews are not allowed in there. Maybe, she thinks, he’s trying to find clothes for the new arrivals and children. She goes around to the side of the hut and stops because she can hear him speaking in German. He is giving someone the names and hut numbers of people. As she listens, she realizes he’s talking to the Priest, who wants the names of the men in the resistance. Tomášek tells the Priest that he is trying, but they are well hidden. The Priest is angry and growls at him to get him the information. Dita is disappointed. She can’t believe he’d do that. There goes another person keeping secrets; another person she can’t trust. Later, she tells her mother and father, and those who stand around listening, that Mr. Tomášek is a traitor. People doubt her, but then her father stands by his daughter. That’s when Mr. Tomášek, all but admitting his guilt, runs out of the hut.

In another point of view shift, Miriam Edelstein and Fredy Hirsch are discussing the visit by the high-ranking Germans. They discuss which ones are more volatile than others. Miriam tells Fredy that she was able to speak with Eichmann, who once knew her in Prague. She says she asked him about her husband, Yakub. Eichmann said that her husband was fine and not to worry. He tells her that Yakub was transferred to Germany and that she, their son, Arieh, and Yakub will “soon all be reunited” (131). Miriam fails to catch the irony.

Alice and Rudi spend each day together at the fence. One day, he brings her a garlic glove, and right away he realizes it’s the wrong gift. Next time, he will bring her something lovely that a girl would want. They speak about their mutual admiration and their dreams. Afterward, Alice runs back to the hut and trades the garlic for a bar of glycerin soap. When the other women see the soap that Alice uses as she washes herself, they ruthlessly bully Alice, calling her a slut. Alice is ashamed and throws the soap at the women, who collide in their attempt to catch it. She runs to Mr. Hirsch and tells him what happened, and he explains that the women don’t hate her: “These women are afraid, Alice. They’re angry at everything that’s happening to us” (140).

Alice leaves, and Hirsch goes into his office. Hirsch doesn’t know that Dita is in her hiding place and has heard everything. She is fearful now because her father has been sick. She worries it might be typhoid, which is killing the prisoners. She thinks about the books she’s read, and they comfort her. Then, all of a sudden, she hears a sound. She believes this will be the moment of truth, as a man wearing the brown band of a Kapo, enters and goes straight to Hirsch. She hears Hirsch telling him it will be the last time. His name is Ludwig, and they are both German. They argue, then Ludwig cries as the two men kiss.

Dita is shocked, and she runs out, bumping into Professor Morgenstern. They have a quick exchange, and Morgenstern reminds her that secrets are for her to keep. She runs off and finds Miriam. She tells Miriam what she has discovered. Miriam tries to calm her. She has always known. Dita is angry, but Miriam reminds Dita that she got her truth. Miriam says, “You wanted truth, but a truth that suited you” (147). Miriam then tells Dita Hirsch’s story; one about his constant commitment to the JDP and the sacrifices he has made to honor that. Then she reminds Dita that she must tell Hirsch about Mengele. Dita says that she will and promises to keep Hirsch’s homosexuality a secret. 

The author devotes all of Chapter 13 to the life of Fredy Hirsch. Fredy has always known he was gay and yet, he’s used all of his discipline to deny himself the pleasure he feels around men. He is a devoted athlete who also teaches and coaches sports. One slip up, and he’s done for. So, he puts all of his sexual energy into keeping himself in shape and staying out of trouble.

When he’s deported to Terezín, he continues to coach the boys, helping them keep their spirts and self-esteem up. But one day, in 1943, 1,260 children from Bialystok arrive by train. More than 50,000 Jews had been interred in the ghetto of Bialystok, and all but the children who arrived in Terezín had been systematically exterminated. Fredy worries about them. Without parents, some so small and hungry, he fears for their lives. He tries to visit them one day, but everyone except the SS is forbidden from going near the area in Terezín where they are being held.

Fredy makes it inside and attempts to find the children. He sees a roomful of boys, just their legs as they swing them from the top of a bunk. He continues down the hallway. When he passes an SS guard, he acts like there is nothing unusual about him being there, but after the guard passes him, he turns around and arrests him. After much time in jail, it is determined that Hirsch will be deported to Auschwitz. He has a final conversation with Yakub, Miriam’s husband who heads the Jewish Council in the ghetto. Because of Yakub’s influence, Hirsch is not killed. Instead, he arrives at Auschwitz, and is given control of the school. But Yakub, for his role in the Jewish leadership, goes to the most brutal prison of them all. When they part, Yakub tries to give Fredy some encouragement: “We mustn’t lose hope, Fredy. Don’t let the flame go out” (165). Fredy knows that it is Yakub who will suffer the most. 

Dita tells Fredy that Mengele threatened to watch her all the time. To her relief, Fredy doesn’t take the job away from Dita. He tells her that, of course, it’s a risk. They are at war. Breathing is a risk. She must continue to do it if she wants to. She is elated, but when she gets back to the hut, she finds out that her father has been removed and taken to the infirmary. Dita is bereft. No women are allowed in the men’s infirmary so she bribes a boy, telling him she will give him her bread ration if he will lend her the jacket. He says not unless she also shows him and his friend her breasts. She agrees. He gives her the jacket, which she puts on, covering her head with the hood.

With the hood on, it is impossible to tell that she’s a girl. She sneaks into the infirmary. The boys watching her are stunned. Dita sits beside her dying father and holds his hand. He cannot speak and has no final words for her. When she comes back outside, she begs the boy to let her mother use the jacket. Knowing now why she wanted the jacket, he agrees and suspends payment of her breasts and food, even when she offers her end of the deal. Her mother spends a few minutes with her husband. She returns hopeful that he will live, but the next day, he dies.

Dita grieves. As the women comfort her mother, who is confused and silent, Dita heads in anger to Block 31. There, she finds the professor. She tells him her father is dead. She flies into a rage, screaming out that the Nazis are murderers. The professor tries his best to comfort her. He says, “Those who go, no longer suffer” (184). His words do comfort her. She returns to her mother, who has maintained a strange, placid expression throughout the day. When she sees Dita, and they hug, her face shatters, and the two remaining Adlers weep into each other’s arms. 

Viktor Pestek is a high-ranking officer. He has many responsibilities in his job. He is to keep people working till they die. He also brings children to the gas chambers and beats their mothers if they fight him for their children. He remembers how he used to have Jewish friends, and how over time, he began to hate them. He burned his friend and neighbor’s house. Now, his mental state is cracking. He is sickened and wants nothing more to do with Auschwitz and the filthy war. It is as if he has changed back into a human being overnight.

Maybe the change is due to falling in love with a Jewish girl on the other side of the fence. Her name is Renee. He begins to bring her extra food, soap, and other items. The other women in the camp notice and call her a whore.

Meanwhile, Dita starts reading the book that was forbidden to her; The Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk. It becomes her favorite book because while it is scandalous, the scandal is an ironic way of showing the cruelty and bizarre quality of war. Later, she talks to a woman who speaks about Mengele’s atrocities. The woman tells Dita to run the other way whenever she sees Mengele because he is pure evil. For Dita, the subject of God and the devil come to mind, and she thinks: “If God exists, then so does the devil. They’re travelers on the same rail line moving in opposite directions.” (200). As the war drags on, Dita thinks more and more about the role of God in her predicament. 

Ota Keller visits his father, who once owned and ran a thriving lingerie company in Prague. The Nazis have taken everything away from his father, except for one thing: His voice. Mr. Keller sings like a professional and sometimes, even though his voice has grown weaker since the war began, he gives concerts to the men in the hut of Block 31. Ota believes his father is the most serious man he knows. That’s why he thinks his father sings—as a way to counter-balance his solemnity and sorrow. When it was announced in the Terezín ghetto that they were all being deported to Auschwitz, people cried and shouted, but Mr. Keller “quietly began to sing the aria from Rigoletto…” (203). Ota, once an avowed communist, has seen the ravages that ideological thinking can reap on others and has abandoned his once strong passion for communism. Before the war, he was the privileged son of a rich Czech Jew, and now he sees the danger of his adolescent flirtation with “lounge-room Communism” (203).

Meanwhile, Dita has taken to reading her favorite book in the latrines. It is freezing and smelly, but it’s the only safe place for her to read the book without distraction. Later, Dita and Margit continue to gossip about Renee and the Nazi.

Renee knows that people are talking about her. She wants to hate Viktor. She knows it’s her duty to hate him, but she can’t. When he tells her that he wants to be with her, and he wants the war to end, she listens to him with interest. He describes his village in Romania in a special way and tells her he wants to take her there and live with her.

Later, when the teachers find out that Dita is reading the forbidden book, they lose their tempers. It’s trash, they tell her. She must not read it. Dita argues about how incisive it is regarding the cruelties and horrors of the war. She tries to explain to them that the book is an effective parody. Finally, Miriam Edelstein argues on Dita’s behalf, telling the others that maybe they should read it, too. The other women are scandalized. Miriam leans over and whispers to Dita that she wants the book when Dita is finished.