The Librarian of Auschwitz

by Antonio Iturbe

  “Look here, this is supposed to be a school, no matter how dirty it is. As deputy directors, you can’t allow our young people to read vulgar pulp novels like this. The worst blasphemies I’ve heard in my life are contained in this book.”

  To emphasize her comments, she asks them to listen to an example of lack of respect for the church hierarchy and the foul things said about a priest and a minister of God:

  He’s as drunk as a skunk. But he has the rank of captain. No matter what their rank, God has given all these military chaplains the gift of always being able to fill themselves with drink to the point of bursting. I was once with a priest called Katz who was almost prepared to sell his soul for a drink. As it was, he sold a sacred container and we drank every last cent he got for it; and if someone had given us a little something for the Church, we would have spent that on drink as well.

  Mrs. Křižková slams the book shut when she realizes that Lichtenstern is making a huge effort to stop himself from laughing. Dita keeps an eye on the harm being done to the book’s pages, which are on the verge of coming away from the spine. Křižková asserts that this is a very serious matter and demands that the book be banned. She continues to wave the pages in the air and again questions what sort of values they are inculcating in their youth if they allow them to read such books.

  Dita, tired of seeing her wave the book back and forth like a fly swatter, jumps up, plants herself in front of the teacher even though she is fifteen centimeters shorter, and asks her most politely, but with steel in her voice, if she would let her have the book for a moment “… please.” And she emphasizes the please so forcefully that it sounds as if she’s hitting the older woman over the head with it. The teacher, caught unawares, holds out the mistreated pages with an offended look.

  Dita takes the book with care, adjusts the loose sheets, and reinserts the dangling pages. She takes her time, and the others, intrigued, watch how she smooths the sheets and mends the book as if she were dealing with a war wound. Her hands and gaze show so such respect and care for the old book that not even the indignant teacher dares say a word.

  Eventually, when everything is back in its place, Dita carefully opens the book and addresses herself to the circumspect Lichtenstern and Miriam Edelstein, who has a neutral look on her face. She says that it’s true this book contains tales like the ones the teacher has read. But it also tells stories like the following one. And then it’s her turn to read:

  The last resort for those who didn’t want to go to the front line was military prison. I met a teacher who, as a mathematician, didn’t want to go and shoot in an artillery regiment. He stole an officer’s watch so they’d put him in prison. It was entirely premeditated. War neither impressed nor fascinated him. He believed that shooting at the enemy, and firing projectiles and grenades to kill the math teachers on the other side who were just as unfortunate as him, was colossal stupidity, an act of brutality.

  “These are some of the bad ideas this foolish book teaches: that war is stupid and bestial. Do you disagree with this, too?”

  Silence.

  Lichtenstern wishes he had a cigarette to put between his lips. He scratches his left ear to gain time, and finally decides to speak so he won’t have to pass judgment.

  “Forgive me, but I have to go and see the medics urgently about a matter to do with the children’s visits.”

  Too many women at the same time. Lichtenstern opts to remove himself, and quickly.

  Without wishing to, Miriam Edelstein has become the referee in the battle over reading matter.

  “What Edita just read seems very sensible to me. Moreover,” she adds looking straight at Mrs. Křižková, “we can’t say that this is a sacrilegious book that treats religion disrespectfully when all it says, in the end, is that some Catholic priests are drunkards. Nowhere is the scrupulous integrity of our rabbis questioned.”

  The two women teachers, offended and angered by the sarcasm, turn around as they mutter who knows what complaints and reproaches. When they are a safe distance away, Miriam Edelstein whispers to Dita that she’d like to borrow the novel one afternoon when Dita has finished it.

  17.

  Dita spreads out her library for another morning. When she went to Hirsch’s cubicle, she found him sketching out tactics for his volleyball team, which is going head-to-head with another teacher’s team in an important game behind the hut this afternoon after lunch. Dita is not as cheerful as her boss; she has pins and needles in her legs after the lengthy morning head count.

  “How’s it going, Edita? It’s a lovely morning—the sun’s going to come out for a while today, you’ll see.”

  “My feet are killing me, thanks to these wretched head counts. They’re never ending. I hate them.”

  “Edita, Edita … Blessed head count! Do you know why it takes so long?”

  “Well…”

  “Because we’re all still here. We haven’t lost a single child since September. Do you understand? More than five thousand people in the family camp have died from disease, starvation, or exhaustion since September.” Dita sadly nods her head. “But not a single child from Block Thirty-One! We’re succeeding, Edita. We’re doing it.”

  Dita gives him a sad smile of victory. If only her father were there so she could tell him.

  * * *

  She unobtrusively moves the bench with the books a few meters, so she can follow Ota Keller’s classes more closely. Now that her father has gone, she has to keep up her studies on her own; Keller always has something interesting to say. She studies him—his thick woolen sweater and round face, which suggests he was probably a chubby little boy.

  He’s talking to the children about volcanoes.

  “Many meters underground, the Earth is on fire. Sometimes, the internal pressure creates cracks from which white-hot material rises to form volcanoes. This material is molten rock, which becomes a really hot sort of paste called lava. At the bottom of the sea, volcanic eruptions create lava cones, which end up forming islands. That’s how the islands of Hawaii, for example, were formed.”

  Dita listens to the sounds of the lessons rising from the little groups; it’s like steam heating up the inhospitable stable in which they are located and converting it into a school. And she asks herself yet again why they are all still alive.

  Why have they allowed five-year-olds to run around here? It’s the question they all ask themselves.

  If Dita could place her metal bowl against the wall of the Lager officers’ mess hall and listen, she would have the answer she’s looked for so many times.

  SS Camp Kommandant Schwarzhuber, in charge of Birkenau, and Dr. Mengele, the SS captain with “special” responsibilities, are the only two left in the mess hall. The Kommandant has a bottle of apple schnapps in front of him while the medical captain has a cup of coffee.

  Mengele studies the Kommandant with detachment—his long face and fanatical look. The medical captain does not consider himself an extremist; he’s a scientist. Perhaps he doesn’t want to admit to being envious of Schwarzhuber’s incredibly blue eyes, so unmistakably Aryan compared to his own, which are brown, and which, together with his darker skin, give him a disconcertingly southern Mediterranean appearance. At school, some children made fun of him, calling him a Gypsy. He’d love to lay them down on his dissection table and ask them to repeat their comments to him now.

  Vivisection is an extraordinary experience. It’s like the view a watchmaker has of a watch, but of life …

  He observes Schwarzhuber drinking. It’s deplorable that an SS Kommandant with dozens of assistants at his disposal is incapable of appearing with perfectly polished boots or properly ironed shirt collars. It’s a sign of slackness, and that’s unforgiveable. He despises country bumpkins like Schwarzhuber who cut themselves when they shave. And on top of that, Schwarzhuber does something that utterly annoys Mengele: He repeats conversations they’ve already had, using the exact same words and the same stupid arguments.

  Yet aga
in Schwarzhuber asks Mengele why his superiors have such an interest in this absurd family camp, expecting the doctor to give him the usual answer. Mengele musters his patience and puts on a show of affability while deliberately speaking as if to a small child or the mentally handicapped.

  “You are already aware, Herr Kommandant, that this camp is strategically very important to Berlin.”

  “Dammit, Herr Doktor, yes, I do already know that! But I don’t know why it’s shown such consideration. Are we now going to set up a child care center for them as well? Have they gone mad? Do they think Auschwitz is a resort?”

  “That’s what we would like a few countries that are keeping a close eye on us to think. Rumors are rife. When the International Red Cross started to request more information about our camps and asked to send inspectors, our commander in chief, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, was brilliant, as always. Rather than banning the visit, he encouraged them to come. We will show them what they want to see: Jewish families living together and children running around Auschwitz.”

  “Too many complications—”

  “All the work that was done in Theresienstadt will have been useless if, when we receive inspectors of the International Red Cross who have tracked the inhabitants of that ghetto to here, they see what we don’t want them to see. We’ll invite them to see the house, but we won’t show them the kitchen, just the playroom. And they’ll return to Geneva satisfied.”

  “To hell with the Red Cross! Who do these cowardly Swiss, who don’t even have an army, think they are, telling the Third Reich what it should do? Why aren’t they shown the door as soon as they get here? Or even better, have them sent to me, and I’ll stick them in the ovens without first stopping off in the kitchen.”

  Mengele smiles condescendingly as he watches Schwarzhuber becoming more and more red in the face. He has to restrain himself from grabbing his riding crop and bringing it down on Schwarzhuber’s head. No, not his crop, that’s too valuable. Better yet, he would have enjoyed pulling out his gun and blowing Schwarzhuber’s brains out. But Schwarzhuber is the Kommandant of Birkenau, even if he is a complete idiot.

  “My dear Herr Kommandant, don’t underestimate the importance of the image we offer to the world and our project. We must be careful. Do you know which executive office our beloved Führer first held within the Nazi party?”

  Mengele pauses theatrically; he knows he’s going to answer his own question, but he enjoys humiliating Schwarzhuber. “Head of propaganda. He talks about it in his book, Mein Kampf—have you read it?” He relishes the Kommandant’s worried expression. “Many people, both within Germany and outside our borders, have still not understood the need to cleanse humanity genetically by eliminating racial degeneration. There are still countries that would go on alert and open up new war fronts. And we absolutely don’t want that right now. We want to be the ones who decide where and when fronts are opened. It’s the same as performing an operation, my dear Kommandant. You can’t cut just anywhere; you have to choose the appropriate place for an incision. The war is our scalpel, and we have to handle it with precision. If you handle it like a madman, you might end up sticking it into yourself.”

  Schwarzhuber can’t stand Mengele’s patronizing tone—the same one a teacher might use with a hopeless pupil.

  “Dammit, Mengele, you talk like a politician! I’m a soldier. I have my orders and I’ll carry them out. If SS Reichsführer Himmler says we have to keep the family camp, so be it. But this business of a child care center … where does that fit in?”

  “Propaganda, Herr Kommandant … pro-pa-gan-da. We’re going to get these inmates to write home and tell their Jewish relatives how well they’re being treated in Auschwitz.”

  “And what the devil do we care what those Jewish pigs think about how we treat them?”

  Mengele breathes in and mentally counts to three.

  “My dear Herr Kommandant, there are still many Jews out there who’ll have to be brought here progressively. An animal that doesn’t know it’s going to the slaughterhouse allows itself to be led there much more docilely than one that knows it’s going to be sacrificed and thus puts up all kinds of resistance. As someone from a village, Schwarzhuber, you ought to know that.”

  Mengele’s final comment irritates Schwarzhuber.

  “How dare you call Tutzing a village? For your information, Tutzing is considered the most beautiful town in Bavaria, in all of Germany, even … which means we could say in the whole world.”

  “Of course, Herr Kommandant. I completely agree: Tutzing is a marvelous town.”

  Schwarzhuber is about to reply, but he realizes that this pedantic, middle-class doctor is deliberately provoking him, and he’s not going to play along.

  “Very well, Herr Doktor, a child care center, whatever is necessary,” he roars. “But I’m not going to let it cause the slightest problem or disturbance in the camp. It will be closed at the first sign of lack of discipline. Do you think that Jew who’s in charge will be able to maintain discipline?”

  “Why not? He’s German.”

  “Captain Mengele! How dare you say that a repugnant Jewish dog like him belongs to our glorious German nation?”

  “Well, call him what you will, but Hirsch’s file says he was born in Aachen in North Rhine–Westphalia. As far as I know, that’s in Germany.”

  Schwarzhuber gives Mengele a fiery look. Mengele can read his thoughts—his superior finds his impertinence intolerable—but Mengele’s not worried, because he can also detect his superior’s mistrust. Schwarzhuber knows that he has to tread carefully, because Mengele has powerful friends in Berlin. There’s a flash of malice in his eyes, as if he’s licking his lips in anticipation of the moment when Mengele’s lucky star will fade and Schwarzhuber can allow himself the pleasure of crushing him. But Mengele smiles affably; he knows that moment will never arrive. He’s always a step ahead of these military men who, in reality, have understood nothing and have no idea why they are at war. Mengele does know. He’s fighting to turn himself into a celebrity. First, he’ll head up the DFG, the German Research Foundation, and then he’ll change the course of medical history. The course of humanity, ultimately. Josef Mengele knows he’s not a humble man; he leaves that to the weak.

  History will teach Mengele a lesson. That the greatest weakness of all is precisely that of the strong: They end up believing they are invincible. So the strength of the Third Reich is also its fragility. Believing it is indestructible, it will open so many battlefronts that it will end up collapsing. The planes of the Allies are already starting to circle over Auschwitz, and the first bombardments can be heard in the distance.

  Nobody avoids weakness. Not even the invincible Fredy Hirsch.

  It happens a few days later. When the last activities of the afternoon are over and the hut starts to empty, Dita hurries to gather her books. She wraps them up in a piece of material to protect them from the soil in the hidey-hole and walks over to Hirsch’s cubicle to stow them away. She wants to get back to her mother quickly, to keep her company.

  She knocks on Hirsch’s door and hears him giving her permission to come in. She finds him, as usual, sitting in the cubicle’s only chair, but this time he isn’t working on a report. His arms are crossed, and he’s staring blankly into space. Something inside him has changed.

  She accesses the wooden trapdoor hidden under a pile of folded blankets and fits the books into the space. She works speedily so she can leave quickly without disturbing Hirsch too much. But as she turns around to leave, she hears his voice behind her.

  “Edita…”

  Hirsch sounds unhurried, perhaps a little tired, and lacking that energy which inspires his young listeners when he gives his pep talks. When she faces the athlete, what she sees is a man who is unexpectedly exhausted.

  “You know something? Maybe, when all this is over, I won’t go to the Promised Land.”

  Dita looks at him, mystified, and Fredy smiles benevolently at her reaction. It’s logic
al, he thinks, that she wouldn’t understand. He’s spent years putting all his effort into explaining to young people that they should feel proud to be Jews and should prepare themselves to return to the land of Zion, where they can use the Golan Heights as a springboard to be closer to God.

  “Look, the people here … what are they? Zionists? Anti-Zionists? Atheists? Communists?” A sigh blurs his words momentarily. “And who cares? If you look more carefully, all you can see is people, nothing more. Fragile, corruptible people. Capable of the best and the worst.”

  And Dita struggles to hear some of his words, which, like the earlier ones, Hirsch is addressing to himself rather than to her:

  “Everything that was important now strikes me as insignificant.”

  He falls silent again and gazes into space—which is what we do when we want to look inside ourselves. Dita doesn’t understand a thing. She doesn’t understand why a man who has fought so hard to return to the Promised Land has suddenly lost all interest in going there. She’d like to ask him, but he’s no longer looking at her; he’s not there anymore. She decides to leave him alone in his labyrinth and depart without making a sound.

  She’ll understand later, but right at that moment, she’s incapable of seeing in his change of heart that rare moment of clarity that comes to people when they find themselves on a cliff-edge of life. From the top of the precipice, everything looks incredibly small.

  Dita glances at the table. The papers lying on it are in Hirsch’s hand, but when she looks at them more carefully, she realizes they aren’t reports or administrative notes, but poems. Lying on top of them, like a rock that has come loose and crushed everything, is a sheet of paper bearing the letterhead of the camp’s command headquarters. She only has time to read one word on it written in bold: Transfer.

  News of the transfer has already reached the office of the registrar in the quarantine camp, Rudi Rosenberg. The six-month deadline for the September transport has been reached and, as forecast on the file, the Germans are setting in motion the “special treatment.”