The Librarian of Auschwitz
Historical Fiction Accessible Primary Sources
✡ Jewish / Holocaust
Fourteen-year-old Dita guards the eight smuggled books of the camp's secret school in the Theresienstadt family block.
The Verdict
In the family camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau there was a secret school, and it had a library of eight books — and a fourteen-year-old girl to guard them with her life. Antonio Iturbe builds his novel on the real Dita Kraus, who kept and hid those few precious volumes in the one place on earth where owning a book could mean death. The premise sounds almost like a fable, but it is grounded in fact, and its subject — reading as an act of defiance and survival — gives the horror a strange, stubborn light. Occasionally over-sweetened, but rooted in something true.
Who Should Read It
Read it if you want
- Books and learning as resistance in Auschwitz
- A story built on a real survivor
- The Birkenau family camp
- Defiance amid the horror
Look elsewhere if you want
- A documentary Holocaust history
- Unrelieved bleakness
- A survivor's memoir rather than a novel
Why We Rated It 4.2
Historical Context
The Librarian of Auschwitz (2017, originally La bibliotecaria de Auschwitz) is based on the real Dita Kraus, a teenage prisoner who looked after a tiny clandestine library in the Auschwitz-Birkenau family camp. Iturbe worked with Kraus, who survived the war, to ground the novel in her experience.
Events Covered
Read It Alongside
The Book of Lost Names Kristin Harmel · 2020 · ★ 4.2
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Number the Stars Lois Lowry · 1989 · ★ 4.5
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If This Is a Man Primo Levi · 1947 · ★ 4.9
Memoir Where to Buy
ISBN: 978-1250258038
Read This Against
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Is The Librarian of Auschwitz based on a real person?
- Yes — on Dita Kraus, who guarded a small secret library in the Birkenau family camp and survived to help verify the book.
- Were there really books in Auschwitz?
- In the family camp's secret school, a handful of smuggled books were kept and hidden — the basis for the story.