The Librarian of Auschwitz(29)
Dita raised her right hand with mock solemnity, and the two girls laughed as they headed up the stairs. As soon as they arrived, Hanka started to chat to a tall, slim boy. Not knowing what else to do, Dita approached a boy who was drawing a picture of planet Earth as seen from space.
“What are those really weird mountains in the foreground?” she asked him without any introduction.
“It’s the moon.”
Petr Ginz was the editor-in-chief of Vedem, a clandestine, loose-leaf magazine, which was read out loud every Friday, and which contained information about events in the ghetto. But it also accepted opinion pieces, poems, and fantasies. Petr was a great admirer of Jules Verne, and From the Earth to the Moon was one of his favorite books. At night, lying on top of his bunk, he’d think about how incredible it would be to have a cannon like Mr. Barbicane’s from which he could launch himself into space inside a giant ball. He stopped drawing for a moment, looked up, and stared at the girl who had questioned him with such self-confidence. He liked the sparkle in her eyes, but he nevertheless addressed her severely.
“You’re very curious.”
Dita blushed and was overcome with shyness. She regretted being such a chatterbox. And then Petr’s attitude changed.
“Curiosity is the primary virtue of a good journalist. I’m Petr Ginz. Welcome to Vedem.”
Now Dita asks herself what sort of a chronicle Petr Ginz would have written about the activities of Block 31. She wonders what became of that skinny, sensitive boy.
That day, after their first encounter, Dita was walking with Petr in front of the so-called “Dresden barracks.” When he had asked her if she’d like to accompany him to do an interview for the magazine, Dita had hesitated for a second—probably not even that—before saying yes. They were going to interview the director of the library.
She was thrilled at the idea of being a journalist, and she felt a shiver of pride when she arrived with the determined Petr Ginz at the entrance to Building L304, where the library was located. They asked the receptionist if the director, Dr. Utitz, could receive two journalists from the magazine, Vedem, and the woman smiled amiably and asked them to have a seat.
Emil Utitz appeared a few minutes later. Before the war, he had been a professor of philosophy and psychology at the German University in Prague, and a columnist for various newspapers.
He told them the library had about sixty thousand books. These came from the hundreds of public libraries and private collections belonging to the Jewish community, which the Nazis had closed down and plundered. He also explained that the library still had no reading room, and so for the time being, it was a mobile library, by which he meant that the books were wheeled from building to building and could be borrowed. Petr asked Utitz if it was true that he had been a friend of Franz Kafka. The director nodded.
The editor in chief of Vedem then requested permission to accompany one of the librarians on a book round so that they could explain in the magazine how it all worked. Utitz happily agreed to the request.
On the appointed afternoon, Petr had to attend a poetry recital, so it was Dita who cheerfully accompanied the librarian, Miss Sittigová, as she pushed her trolley of books around the streets of Terezín. After a day’s labor in the workshops, factories, and foundries or at agricultural tasks, the opportunity to escape offered by the library-on-wheels was warmly welcomed. But Miss Sittigová told her that books were often stolen, and not always so they could be read. They were also used as toilet paper or as fuel for the stoves.
The librarian didn’t even have to announce her arrival in a loud voice: “Library service!” Young and old passed on the news in a chorus of mixed voices, which rang out merrily until people began to emerge from the doors of their buildings and eagerly leaf through the available books. Dita so enjoyed pushing the books that from then on, she began to travel around with them regularly. Once her day’s work was over, if she didn’t have an art class, she would spend the rest of the afternoon helping the librarian with her work.
And that was when she bumped into Fredy Hirsch again.
He was living in one of the buildings near the main clothing warehouse. But he was rarely to be found there. He was always on the go, organizing sports competitions or taking part in activities with the ghetto youth. Whenever Dita saw him heading toward the trolley, he was always neatly dressed and walking energetically, and he always greeted them with that faint smile of his, which was just enough to make you feel important. He was always on the lookout for songbooks and books of poetry to use during the gatherings he organized with the young people on Friday evenings to celebrate Shabbat. There’d be singing and storytelling, and Fredy would talk to them about the return to Palestine, where they would go after the war. On one occasion, he even tried to encourage Dita to join the group. She blushed as she told him that it might happen one day, but she felt really embarrassed and didn’t think her parents would let her go. Deep down, however, she would have loved to join the older boys and girls who sang, discussed things like adults, and even secretly exchanged kisses.
Dita now realizes how little she knows about Alfred Hirsch. And her life is in his hands. If he tells the German commanders that “inmate Dita Adler hides clandestine books under her clothing,” they’ll catch her in flagrante at the next inspection. But if he wanted to denounce her … why wouldn’t he have done it already? And why would Hirsch denounce himself if Block 31 is his initiative? It makes no sense. Dita thinks she’ll have to do some digging, but discreetly. Maybe Hirsch is somehow getting preferential treatment for the prisoners and she could ruin it all.