The book inspired me to do a lot of research on my own. How did I never hear about a family camp at Auschwitz? The idea behind the family camp was similar to the idea behind Terezin. The Nazis wished to have "model" concentration camps that seemed more like ghettos than actual camps should the International Red Cross come a calling. The school was set up more to keep the kids positively occupied than to teach them anything since books and most things related to learning were forbidden. The school library did possess eight books. These books took on such a great importance while in the camp. They gave Dita something to hold on to. She evolved so much by escaping into the world of her books and by learning from the actions of the characters in the books: both real characters and fictionalized ones. My biggest problem with the novel, though, was that I wasn't sure if it would have better had the book been a narrative non-fiction instead of this fictionalized account which included so many real life people. I'm just not sure.
I think I wrote this recently about another Holocaust book but this one was really grizzly to read. The violence, even though I know it actually occurred, remains unfathomable.
Some random observations I made while reading the book:
1. Children are so important. The Nazis lodged children in Terezin separately from adults. They didn't want children to bear honest witness.
2. My former father-in-law left Poland to explore Communism and living in Russia.
He's left behind the period of his adolescence when he allowed himself to be
bewitched by the teachings of Karl Marx, when he believed that internationalization
and Communism were the answers to all of history's problems.... he was a Czech,
and he was a Jew. When the Nazis entered Prague and began to round up the Jews,
Ota finally realized his place in the world: Blood and a thousand-year tradition tied him
so much...
3. Mothers always know more than their children think they do.
4. Dita admits that sometimes her mother drives her mad - no matter how she's feeling,
Liesel always says she's fine. How can Dita know the truth?
But Mrs. Adler is always feeling fine for Dita.
When I'd phone my mom each night and ask her how she was or how she was doing, she'd always say, "I'm fine. We're all fine. Everything here is fine." After my mom passed away, my dad said, "You know she was lying to you, didn't you?" I did. Even though it was reassuring to hear her say she was fine. I can still her saying that in my head.
5. Dita wonders why the guards are so angry with the prisoners, given that they
are the ones who have been humiliated and deprived of everything, given that
they've barely set foot in the camp and haven't done anyone any harm, given
that all they're going to do is obey and work feverishly for the Reich without
asking for anything in return. But these robust, well-fed, and well-dressed guards
prove to be furious. ... Dita is surprised by the irritation of their aggressors, their
display of indignation toward people who have done them no harm.
In a word, propaganda?
6. Along the same lines:
It occurs to Dita that if Hitler hadn't come to power and the war hadn't broken out, this unscrupulous woman now standing in front of them with a killer's glint in her eye would be yet another of those slightly plump, pleasant hairdressers who give the girls ringlets and cheerfully comment about the neighborhood gossip. Their clients, including German-Jewish women, would lower their heads, and she would cut their hair with her scissors, and none of them would be the least bit worried about placing their necks in the hands of this oversized woman who is addicted to somewhat fanciful, upswept hairstyles. If anyone had insinuated that, some years down the track, Elisabeth Volkenrather might be a murderer, the entire community would have been outraged. Good old Beth? That woman wouldn't hurt a fly! they'd say indignantly.
Leaders - or people with loud voices - are able to set the tone and they give others permission to show them worse selves. They feel empowered. They become people that their neighbors might not recognize. They show selves that would have been hidden had everyone been trying to be politically correct and trying to get along.
7. Along the lines of "first world problems."
Hours of waiting in line, again. But it's not like the lines in Auschwitz, because here
people are making plans as they wait. There are also angry people, even more irate
than those who waited in half a meter of snow for a watery bowl of soup or a piece
of bread. Now those who wait are irritated by the delay or because they've been
misinformed or because of the number of papers they need. Dita smiles to herself.
Life is back to normal when it's the same things that annoy people.
8. I caught 3 mistakes in the translation. In one instance the name Rudi was written when it should have been Fredi. Another time, it was Elisabeth instead of Liesel. And I only found one grammatical error. These momentarily distracted me until I remembered that I was reading a book that had been translated. Unlike other reviewers who have complained about the translation, I thought it was done very well. The language flowed and the descriptions worked.
9. After completing the book (which ends with real-life updates about characters we've met in the book), I went on to read more about the author and about real-life Dita Krauss. I have a children's book titled I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from the Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944 by Hana Volavkova (editor), Vaclay Havel (Afterword), Chaim Potok (Foreward) and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (contributor).
I searched the book to see if I could find Dita's drawing that I'd read was being displayed in the museum at Terezin.
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| Not the best scan. |
In addition to reading, Dita escaped her pain and distress thru drawing. Sound like anyone you know?
I'm glad I read The Librarian of Auschwitz. I did learn quite a bit. I was once again reminded at how easily a group can be scapegoated and systemically removed. Would I recommend it? Clearly, it's not for everyone.
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