REVIEW # 14: THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ

The Librarian of Auschwitz by  Antonio Iturbe
Translated by Lilit Žekulin Thwaites
Read by Marisa Calin
A Macmillan Audiobook Text Copyright 2012 Translation Copyright 2017

Antonion Iturbe opens his novel in Prague with a procession of soldiers that sets the scene, arousing confusion and fear in the mind of his 9-year-old protagonist who felt fear for the first time. She didn’t understand presence of these men, or the ominous silence of the crowds who observed them. That was the day ‘that she left her childhood behind.’ Moreover, ‘That was the day she . . . started being afraid of men.’

However, she was no ordinary child and that was how she came to be the librarian of Block 31 in Auschwitz. Despite her fear that she was not equal to the task, Dita was thrilled. Books ‘were a reminder of the less sombre times when words rang out more loudly.’ This made them even more ‘precious’ and she vowed ‘she would protect them with her life.’ They had 8 books and a ‘library on legs’ or ‘living books’ which were the people who told the children stories and explained the history and geography of the wider world beyond their prison. All the adults felt a strong sense of responsibility to the children to bring some light into their world. A strong message was conveyed that ‘without (books) the wisdom of civilization might be lost.’ Iturbe follows a long line of writers, like Orwell and Bradbury, who have reiterated that message through their dystopian novels, or their historical fiction such as Marcus Zuzak’s novel, The Book Thief.

The prisoners did everything to protect the children because they knew that ‘Auschwitz not only kills innocents, it kills innocence as well’ and Dita was determined to protect that innocence as much as humanly possible. The old professor taught her that their strength lay in their ‘faith, fight and determination’ to retain their knowledge and imagination, in order to retain their humanity. Life was more than keeping your body alive. Dita was the perfect candidate to run the library because she ‘felt the thrill of discovery, or knowing it didn’t matter how many hurdles the Reichs of the world put in her way, she’d be able to jump over all of them by opening a book.’ She believed in the power of books. For Dita, ‘her small library is a box of matches’ that lights the darkness for an instant for her and the children in the school at Auschwitz. Books helped the prisoners to cope with their hardships. Through the dialogue, Iturbe is able to explore many of his themes and he used many books to reinforce his own messages about the effects of war, hatred and discrimination. In one conversation, he recounts the story of Anne Frank and her sister who ended up in Bergen- Belsen.

In Dita’s mind, ‘as long as they (kept) on laughing, all (was) not lost.’ This seems like a lesson we need today with all the wars and tensions between ─ and within ─ nations as we become increasingly polarized and tribalized, lacking faith in our governments and institutions to guide and represent us. Sadly, Dita’s obsession with trying to find someone she could trust seems to reflect our own era of fake news, cancel culture and scammers making us increasingly cynical and distrustful.

Although Iturbe focuses on a single character, he is able to give a bigger picture of the camp and its impact on both the guards and the prisoners through his omniscient narrator who takes us into relationships and decisions beyond Dita and her personal observations and experiences. Iturbe sketches the social milieux through conversations about the imagination and ideas of Freud, Orwell and H.G. Wells. He recounts a conversation about ‘The Count of Monte Christo’ with its focus on the awful truth that a person can be terribly changed by their circumstances. After hearing this story, Dita wonders whether we really have a choice in the way we respond, or whether ‘the blows dealt to you by fate change you no matter what in the same way that the blow of an axe converts a living tree into firewood.’ In Shakespearean style, he also uses symbolism to reinforce ironies full of pathos. The professor acts like a fool, but his foolishness is an expression of his great wisdom. He and his battered origami bird are a symbol of their fragility. But there is an irony in this and in his acting the fool to distract Mengele, when Dita was in danger of being discovered with books. Both the professor’s behaviour and his battered bird (that is offered to comfort her in her grief ) are really proof of their anti-fragility: their capacity to use their wits and humanity to survive and support each other in the most horrific and hopeless of circumstances. Later, she makes the ironical observation that ‘the most beautiful flowers emerge from the foulest dung heap’ which allows her to cling bitterly to the hope that their innocence and goodness will not all be trampled into the mud. This is even harder to hold onto when she is sent to Bergen-Belsen where the guards are cruel, rough and insulting from the start.

At Bergen-Belsen, there was a 7p.m. curfew. No plumbing. No sewage. No dinner. No beds. Blankets smelt of urine and were full of fleas. They slept on the wooden floor. Deaths were sky-rocketing and most prisoners wore a vacant look and lay about listlessly as they didn’t have work allocated. Their only goal was survival since, ‘even without gas chambers Bergen- Belsen was a killing machine.’ You died from the combination of the living conditions and the prevalence of typhus, dysentery and cholera. Iturbe doesn’t save the reader from the depths of the horrors that occurred. He describes how Dita and other prisoners were forced to carry dead bodies to an enormous pit where the guards would throw them in. This was a devastating experience and Dita came away from that completely demoralised. “That’s all we are,’ she realised. ‘Bits of decomposing matter.’

Unsurprisingly, there are questions about God. On more than one occasion, Dita angrily explodes at the idea of God presiding over this evil, or listening to the desperate prayers of his people.

‘If God exists, then so does the devil. They’re travellers on the same

THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ – A FICTION BASED ON FACT

rail line moving in opposite directions. Good and evil somehow
counterbalance each other. You could almost say they need each other.
How would we know that we are doing good, if evil didn’t exist so that
we could compare them and see the difference, she wonders. There’s
no other place in the world where the devil moves as freely as he does in
Auschwitz . . . In Auschwitz, the weirdest things are normal. Would she be
capable of falling in love with someone on the other side of a fence? More
to the point, is it possible to love in this terrible place? The answer seems to
be yes because Alice Munk and Rudi Rosenberg stand there defying the cold.
God has allowed Auschwitz to exist, so maybe he isn’t an infallible watchmaker
as they told her. The most beautiful flowers emerge from the foulest dung heap,
so maybe, thinks Dita, God isn’t a watchmaker, but a gardener. God sows and the
devil reaps with a scythe that cuts down everything. Who will win this mad game
she asks herself.’  (Chapter 15. 8:3:38)

There is so much more to be said about this book, including the Preface, Epilogue and Postscript which all contributed to acknowledging the horror of the war and its aftermath. I appreciated the way Iturbe went to the trouble of researching what happened to the major historical characters which showed his respect for the reader by going beyond his fiction to fill in the historical facts. It reinforced his belief in the power of books to teach us the truth about our humanity and the great need to question and imagine and keep pushing forward in our quest to understand ourselves and our world. The thread through the book is Dita’s desire for answers that would explain her questions, especially about Auschwitz. Iturbe has presented a strong model for the reader to question, question, question, despite the seeming impossibility of finding any answers. And most importantly of all, Dita’s character urges us to stay the course in our quest for answers and understanding.