The Librarian of Auschwitz - Antonio Iturbe
The Librarian of Auschwitz - Antonio Iturbe
*spoiler warning-ish*
The Librarian of Auschwitz follows Edita Kraus, more commonly known as Dita. Dita is a 15-year-old Jewish girl who was living in Auschwitz. Dita is a real person, and all of the events are based on history. As the title says, she is the “librarian” for Block 31, the family camp. She conceals books and gives them to the instructors to teach the kids when the Germans aren’t paying attention, and it is her job to gather the books and hide when inspections happen. She eventually gets transferred to another camp where even without gas chambers, people are dropping dead everywhere.
The big aspect that makes The Librarian of Auschwitz unique are the historical events. Every once in a while, they will drop a sentence that sounds like it came out of a documentary such as “She would later die along with her sister from typhoid” or something along those lines. These sentences are very jarring, because it interrupts the prose throughout the rest of the story. I would say that it was a very effective way to keep readers engaged. Having facts and statements dropped into the story helps raise awareness for the tragedies of the concentration camps.
On the other hand, it does interrupt the flow of reading. In the book, she at some point encounters Anne Frank. It was slightly misplaced, and the facts put in there didn’t really seem important to the story plot wise. Overall, I enjoyed the little snippets of documentaryish sentences. Another problem with the book was that it tried following the stories of multiple people. I understand that there is a lot to cover, but I thought it would be better to just focus on 2 of them. There was a lot of jumping around and tracing the journeys of around 6 people. That was just too much to keep up with.
The aspect I thought was good was the suspense. You could feel the constant nervous tension as the characters are unsure whether they are going to make it through those horrors. Every time they are forced to line up and get split into 2 groups, they don’t know whether they are going to the group that is getting gassed or not. It also touches on aspects such as maintaining hope and continuing to resist in their own ways. There is a character throughout that symbolizes it, Fredy Hirsch. He is also a real
person who was essentially the leader of Block 31, so yay historical context.
Fredy Hirsch
The descriptions of the scenes were also well said. It truly brings to life what was happening when Dita was in those places.
I really enjoyed The Librarian of Auschwitz, and I would definitely recommend this book. The detailed descriptions and the factual information that gets dropped makes this book a unique read.
I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars
-Jonathan Chen
Hi Jonathan, the way you described the book gets me pretty interested in it. I always found the WW2 era a good time period for books to be written in, and this book seems like it used the setting well. I find the "jarring sentences" also interesting and cool, as I have never heard anything like that before.
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan! This book sounds interesting and it's really cool that it's based on true events. The little documentary-like blurbs seem cool, but I can understand how they disturb the flow. Great blog post!
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan, I always find that reading books where the main character actually existed is really interesting. I think that it allows you to form a better connection with the characters because you know that the events happening in the book were actually lived through by these people. Great review!
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan! This is was one of my favorite books in middle school and I am so glad someone reviewed it. When handling this WWII topic, I feel like stories can mess it up or lose the aspect that they want to be shown very quickly. I will say I had to go back and read this book a few more times before really understanding all the concepts. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteThe premise of this book interests me. It reminds me of a book we read in 5th grade which was also based off of true events called Yellow Star.
ReplyDelete