The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe

Author:Antonio Iturbe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

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.

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