The Librarian of Auschwitz
Auschwitz, 1944. Fourteen-year-old Dita Adlerova has been transported with her parents from the Terezin ghetto into the family camp at Birkenau, where the Nazis have allowed an unusual concession: a children's barracks run by Jewish prisoner Fredy Hirsch. There, hidden under floorboards, Hirsch keeps eight battered books rescued from incoming transports. Dita becomes their secret librarian, lending them out and slipping them back into hiding before each inspection by Josef Mengele. Antonio Iturbe's novel, drawn from years of interviews with the real Dita Kraus, follows her through the destruction of the family camp, the death marches, and her eventual liberation, alongside chapters that move between the other prisoners who keep the small library alive. It is a story about reading as resistance, about the courage required to teach algebra and Russian and history while the chimneys smoke in the distance, and about a girl who refused to let books disappear.
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Based on the memories of Dita Kraus, the novel follows fourteen-year-old Dita inside the Auschwitz family camp BIIb, where teacher Fredy Hirsch has set up a hidden school in Block 31. Dita is given charge of eight books smuggled past the SS, and hides them under her loose clothes each day.
Yes. The Librarian of Auschwitz is based on the real Dita Kraus, a teenage girl who managed a tiny secret library in the Auschwitz family camp. Antonio Iturbe interviewed Kraus extensively. She survived the camp and wrote her own memoir.
Yes. The Librarian of Auschwitz is YA historical fiction, suitable for readers 13 and up. It is widely taught alongside The Book Thief in middle and high school Holocaust literature units.
The Librarian of Auschwitz was written by Antonio Iturbe, published in 2017 by Holt & Company, Henry.
The Librarian of Auschwitz is 448 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Librarian of Auschwitz takes most readers 7 to 10 hours to finish.
The Librarian of Auschwitz is a standalone novel by Antonio Iturbe, not part of a series.
The Librarian of Auschwitz is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
