“There’s no other place in the world where the devil moves as freely as he does in Auschwitz.”

Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, this is the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust.

Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the librarian of Auschwitz.

Out of one of the darkest chapters of human history comes this extraordinary story of courage and hope.

This title has Common Core connections.

“Throughout history, all dictator, tyrants, and oppressors, whatever their ideology – whether Aryan, African, Asian, Arab, Slav, or any other racial background; whether defenders of popular revolutions, or the privileges of the upper classes, or God’s mandate, or martial law – have had one thing in common: the vicious persecution of the written word. Books are extremely dangerous; they make people think.”

― Antonio Iturbe, La bibliotecaria de Auschwitz

If you loved “Book Thief”, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”, “The War that Saved My Life”…. you will LOVE this book! No matter how many books we read about this time period, we will never understand how on this earth these things could have happened. The inhumane and utter cruelty is beyond comprehension. Just as the characters from

The above mentioned books have stayed with us long after the last page was turned, Dita, her family, Rudy, and Freddy Hirsch will forever be a part of our soul! This book should be a must read YA book in every HS history course or college course. Many middle grade students would also love it if they have some background knowledge of this time period.

We can’t express enough how gut wrenching my beautifully told this story was. It will transport you to a time you wish you could forget but is so so important to never forget! Dita is a brave, curious, determined young lady whom many depended on to bring them the joy of books. She’s a hero to many.

5⭐️ for the Librarian of Auschwitz

Antonio Iturbe is the author of The Librarian of Auschwitz, a novel inspired by the true story of Edita (Dita) Adlerova, who spent her early adolescence in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Dita took it upon herself to be the heroic keeper of what might be regarded as eight of the rarest books in history—rare because they were in Auschwitz, a place where books were forbidden, and where being caught in possession of a book would be punished by death. Iturbe, a Spanish journalist, spent years corresponding with and interviewing Adlerova in preparation to write his first YA novel published in the United States. The first Spanish edition of The Librarian of Auschwitz was published in Spain by Editorial Planeta in 2012. PW caught up with Iturbe over Skype at his home in a town just outside of Barcelona, Spain. This interview was conducted in Spanish, and translated into English; the Spanish version follows the English.

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