The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe

The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious books the prisoners have managed to smuggle past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the secret librarian of Auschwitz, responsible for the safekeeping of the small collection of titles, as well as the ‘living books’ - prisoners of Auschwitz who know certain books so well, they too can be ‘borrowed’ to educate the children in the camp.

But books are extremely dangerous. They make people think. And nowhere are they more dangerous than in Block 31 of Auschwitz, the children’s block, where the slightest transgression can result in execution, no matter how young the transgressor…



A moving account of one girl's life in Auschwitz concentration camp during the war. Dita and her mother Lisl are transported from camp to camp until they are finally sent to Auschwitz.

In an attempt to fool the rest of the world into thinking these camps were fine the Germans created a family camp to film and for people to visit to fool them into thinking that the atrocities they were being accused of just were not happening.

Block 31 was the childrens education camp, during the day the parents of the children laboured for the Germans while their children attended 'school'. This school had no books as these were forbidden, children were allowed to play and sing nothing else. Joseph Mengele also had an experimentation block where twins and other children of interest were taken from time to time.

Dita was given the responsibility of being the camps librarian where she looked after 8 books that prisoners had managed to smuggle into camp. These books, along with living teachers were the education that the children received in secret.

I did feel that it was hard to 'feel' emotions in this novel, perhaps it should have been a factual account rather than a story. I'm sure that prisoners were eventually institutionalised and so weak that they almost accepted their treatment - perhaps due to a will to survive some may have become informers which shows itself in the novel.

A moving and disturbing account of what people are capable of on both sides of the war. 4 stars

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.