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Dita Kraus - the librarian who used her books to save lives

  • snappingturtlebook
  • Jul 17, 2019
  • 3 min read


The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe is based on the unbelievable story Dita Kraus and the small library of tattered books which saved her life. Dita had a peaceful and happy childhood as the only child of two loving parents. This came to an end in March 1939 when the Nazi's invaded Prague. After been evicted fr various homes in November 1942 Dita and her parents were sent to the Jewish ghetto of Terezin and from there they were transported to Auschwitz -Birkenau a year later. Dita and her mother were pit into a woman's barrack in the family camp BIIb which was created to hide the fact Auschwitz was been used as an extermination camp. Fredy Hirsch - a 27 year old charasmatic zionist - convinced commanders to allocate a block for children so they don't get in the way of the workers. Fredy wanted to create some normalcy within the death camp and he had known Dita from their time in Prague where he was her sports instructor. They were also together in Terezin. Children were classed as anyone under 14 but Fredy managed to get 14-16 year olds the jobs of assistants, helping to look after and organise the children and the makeshift school. When Dita was fourteen she becane the block's librarian who looked after the few books they had snuck past the Nazi's. There were a handful of books which Dita would hand out in the morning and collect up again in the evening. But the children were not exempt from the gas chambers and after six months in the camp many people including children were killed. In March 1944 Fredy was informed of the upcomimg killing of one of the transports and was asked to lead an uprising. But he was later found dying from a drug overdose, later revealed to be a mistake by Jewish doctors who prescribed too many tablets.


Dita's sketch of the children's block

"The educators in the Kinderblock were the greatest heroes of all,” she adds. “They knew they would die, yet dedicated themselves to the children, to make their last weeks as pleasant as they could.” Dita's dad died at 44 and in July 1944 Dita and her mother were sent to Bergen-Belsen which was a killing machine were prisoners died of starvation. When the camp was liberated the following April British troops found piles of rotting corpses and prisoners who were sick and starving. Dita was freed but had contracted Typhus and whilst waiting for the quarantine to be lifted her mother became ill and died on June 1945. A few weeks before she turned 16 Dita was free but was an orphan and alone. Dita left for Prague alone. A few weeks after returning to Prague she ran into Otto Kraus, a fellow instructor in the children's block who she recognised but had never spoke to. She also managed to find a home in Tepice with Margrit a friend and fellow Auschwitz survivor. Dita and Otto wrote to each other constantly and in 1947 she moved to Prague and they married. In 1949, along with their son, they moved to Israel where they became teachers. Otto wrote a book called the Painted Wall which described his time in the children's block of Auschwitz. He sadly passed away in 2000. The love of books was a joint passion in their lives. Otto himself was a writer. One of his books, The Painted Wall, centres around his own experience as one of the instructors in the children’s block at Auschwitz. Otto passed away in 2000. Dita, now 90, still lives in Israel and frequently visits Prague.



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