The Librarian of Auschwitz

Nearly made me cry :(((

I love books set in wwII but none of those books were as raw and detailed as this book.
It went into such detail that I felt so sick and a little bit nauseous but I'm glad it did.
It needs to be detailed because recently I've seen our generation kind of brush of the holocaust as just a school subject.
When I was in high school, I switched schools every year. In year 7, we learnt about the holocaust and then I switched schools and year 8, we learn about the holocaust and so on. I learnt about the holocaust every year for 5 years because of pure coincidence but that made me passionate about history and I excelled in school work when it came to world war II but it also made me realise how copy and paste schools are. Each year for 5 years, I had to learn the same thing, the EXACT same thing. There are 4 terms in a year and in history class, we learnt 4 history subjects a year so we learnt the holocaust for a term but somehow it never went into detail. ever.
They never went into any detail of the sufferers, which I feel like is the most important thing to learn about to make sure this never happens again.
‘they were gassed' ‘they starved' ‘pit of bodies' yes that is horrible but students need to know more than that so they can really learn and feel something. The school system needs to go into detail into how these poor people lived whether it was in camps, their own houses or escapees.
All teachers kept repeating is that millions of people died which just shocks kids with the huge number but I think to make these kids feel something, mention how they were killed, how they were separated from their families, the torture, the forced labour.
Idk I'm just so upset that people now days don't remember the victims of the holocaust.

I normally don't do reviews. I've read a lot of books on the Great War from all sides. However none of them have hit as hard as this book. The small moments that make you stop and really think. The moments of sad poetic words that bring so many people back just for a moment on the page.

This was a hard read! Not only with the content but the time it took me to read.

I am so inspired by the strength of so many people who survive such terrible conditions. I also get so angry and depressed about the evil of men.
This is a good read and I don't hesitate to recommend it to adults and older teens, but I think it could be pretty traumatic to younger audiences.

i like this book. not the ending tho, where they go to Occupied Palestine, i was hoping Dita wasn't part of the problem, but alas

Honestly, I could spend the entirety of this review simply gushing over the prose to the point where I want to learn Spanish just so I can see if the original words are even more beautiful than the translation. This is the second book by Antonio Iturbe I've read and it didn't disappoint.    Based on the true story of Dita Kraus' days in Auschwitz, the book follows her and her family who have been sent to a part of Auschwitz set up to fool the Red Cross and keep the mistreatment of prisoners under wraps. There, Dita and her block mates form a secret school for the children where they pass along smuggled books. Dita puts herself at risk delivering these books but is more concerned about evading the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele. Despite being in the ‘safe' block, they are still very much in Auschwitz.    There are so many beautiful quotes in this book. This made up for a sometimes stale delivery (which might be due to being translated). My interest in the plot faded in the middle though picked back up again toward the end. It's definitely a long book for historical YA but does maintain a fast pace. 

On one hand I was really intrigued by the story of people who literally risked everything for books while enduring one of the most hellish moments in history. I think it gives credit to those Jews, especially Dita, and to humans as a whole that what was prized most besides essential food and water was knowledge and stories. I like how Antonio Iturbe touched on how much stories have the ability to inspire and also to lift us out of our circumstances. I knew little about Dita and the clandestine library at Auschwitz and enjoyed that aspect of the story.
Having said that, the execution of the novel was a bit clunky. I don't know if it is in part due to the translation or it was just written awkwardly. There are moments where it reads like a YA book, only to be suddenly into a narrative that minutely details horrific events happening. I felt like the depth of character wasn't there to support the subject matter, and the POV would change for no reason and then suddenly slide into an odd future fact about said character almost as a side note, which was always odd and lifts you out of the story a lot.
I think there is a gem of a story here and what Iturbe wanted to tell is extremely worthwhile and certainly has me wanting to know more, but the writing itself prevents it from being a truly great book.

I will never forget these stories, this book. Please read this book and learn about this incredible act of bravery and courage. This is my #2 #favoritebook2017

It was a hard read but very worthwhile. It is hard to fathom the atrocities the characters faced but it was also full of hope as it taught some very valuable lessons about humanity.