Cindy Nord, a Facebook friend, shared
information about an Intrepid Woman I had never “met.” Dita Kraus was the
children’s librarian at Auschwitz. Just that identifier signals that she was
intrepid to have survived the horror of a Nazi death camp.
Her story is one I had
never heard. In fact, I have only vague recall of a fake camp the Nazis ran to
influence world opinion. In fact, I believe my most recent (still years ago)
knowledge came from the movie, The Boy in
the Striped Pajamas.
I read about the
fictionalized biography, The Librarian of
Auschwitz (Antonio Iturbe), and bought it for my librarian son. I thought
he’d appreciate it. I’m sure he’ll pass it back to me when he finishes the
book. Right?
Little information is
available to me in my first research foray. I can see that locating resources
in English is going to be challenging for me. But, the destination is worth the
journey.
In Auschwitz-Birkenau, Block
31, the Nazis created a special camp for families and the children’s section
was overseen by Fredy Hirsch, who despite his best efforts to protect them,
couldn’t save almost 3800 from execution.
In this special camp, Dita
Poláchová, who was the secret children’s librarian there, hid books from the
Nazis so children could have literature, an important part of maintaining their
humanity, she believed.
“If human beings aren’t
deeply moved by beauty, if they don’t close their eyes and activate their
imaginations, if they are capable of asking themselves questions and discerning
the limits of their ignorance,” Iturbe writes, “then they are men or women, but
they are not complete persons: Nothing significant distinguishes them from a salmon
or a zebra or a musk ox.”
In 1942, when she was
thirteen, Dita and her family had to move into a Jewish ghetto from their home
in Prague. They stayed there until December, 1943, when they were shipped to
Auschwitz-Birkenau, along with Fredy Hirsch, a Zionist, and others.
Hirsch told the counselors
to make sure the children were clean and educated in order to retain some
semblance of normality and to ensure they could have a better life when they
were released. Dita was put in charge of the small numbers of books they had,
keeping them hidden while still encouraging children to read and enjoy them.
Keep in mind, she was a young teen when given this responsibility. How brave
she must have been.
Word came that there was to
be a mass execution and resistance leaders wanted Hirsch to help organize and
uprising. His death from an overdose of Luminal was suspicious. Suicide? Many
thought not, but we’ll never know.
Somehow, Dita and her
mother escaped the mass execution on March 8, 1944 and instead were transported
to Bergen-Belsen, the camp made famous by Anne Frank. Dita’s mother died there,
but Dita was liberated in April, 1945.
By the end of the war, she
had lost parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. All alone
now, her family all dead, Dita had to navigate the post-war years on her own.
She returned to Prague and later married Otto Kraus, a man she knew from Block
31. They emigrated to Israel and reared their three children there. They taught
English, interestingly.
Dita’s formal schooling
stopped in fifth grade because the Nazi’s came to power when she was only ten.
She felt the gaps in her education her whole life but she loved books and
reading and learned what she could from them. She still lives in Israel.
Please share this post with
others. I thank you!
Facebook:
Cindy Nord first shared Dita Kraus, secret children’s librarian at Auschwitz,
with me. I want her to be one of my Intrepid Women for the middle grades bio
series. Here’s my blog post about her. http://bit.ly/2CIYlat
Twitter:
#Holocaust survivor Dita Kraus was the secret children’s librarian at #Auschwitz.
She will be one of @Caroline_Adams9’s Intrepid Women in bio series for middle
graders. http://bit.ly/2CIYlat
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