what is the name of the camp ditas family are transported to?

Presently-to-be-published memoir by Dita Kraus details harrowing childhood feel guarding precious books; provides rare glimpse into the family unit army camp in Auschwitz

Dita Kraus was xiv years old when she was given a near unusual chore in World War II'southward largest and most notorious concentration military camp: Manage and distribute a clandestine collection of books among the prisoners in Auschwitz's so-called family camp.

In a new start-hand account of her experiences, Kraus reveals the harrowing daily workings of the Theresienstadt family camp and the children'south block, and describes how she and her mother struggled to survive. Titled A Delayed Life: The True Story of the Librarian of Auschwitz (Ebury Printing), Kraus' memoir is scheduled to be released in early Feb.

"When I was 10 [years old], I had to delay all my wishes and all my plans," Kraus explained to The Media Line in relation to the book'due south title. "Everything had to be postponed until, until, until… This went on and on."

Born in Prague in 1929, Dita Kraus (née Polachova) came from a secular socialist family and as a young child was disconnected from her Jewish identity.

"I came across the give-and-take 'Jew' for the first time when I was in grade three," she writes in her memoir.

When she was 10, war bankrupt out and Nazi Germany occupied then-Czechoslovakia. Kraus' father was dismissed from his task and a growing number of restrictions were placed on the country'due south Jewish community until 1942, when the family was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. Over 150,000 Jews passed through the ghetto, which was established by the SS. All of its residents lived in squalid conditions. Most were then sent off in transports to Nazi concentration camps.

A photograph of Dita Kraus as a child, taken in 1942. (Courtesy)

In 1943, at the historic period of fourteen, Kraus and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Similar other Jews from Theresienstadt, they were sent to the BIIb compound, or family unit army camp, consisting of 32 barracks where men and women slept separately.

A view of the ruins of the BIIb compound or family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Library of Auschwitz

The family campsite was a unique phenomenon in Auschwitz. Unlike the vast majority of those in the infamous Nazi army camp, who were separated from family unit members upon their arrival, 17,500 Czech Jews from Theresienstadt were afforded singular privileges in the family camp, including being able to remain together.

"Men, women and children were in the same camp [and] we could meet outdoors," Kraus told The Media Line. "There was a daycare which was run past Fredy Hirsch, a marvelous person. It was a miracle that he was allowed to go on i house free [to be used equally] a daycare for children."

Teacher and Zionist youth motility leader Fredy Hirsch, who ran the children's block in Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Beit Terezin Annal)

Hirsch, a instructor and Zionist youth motility leader, ran the children's block and somehow convinced the SS to allow the barrack to be dedicated to children during the daytime, thereby creating the but educational haven of its kind in Auschwitz. Hirsch also appointed Kraus to exist the librarian of the "smallest library in the world."

"I became responsible for the few books that were at that place," Kraus said, adding that the drove consisted of a dozen or so tomes, including an atlas and a Russian-language instruction book. The books were smuggled into the children'south block from the baggage of Jews who arrived to Auschwitz daily. Whenever a book was found, it would exist sent at that place.

"The [books] were not entertaining," Kraus recalled. Nevertheless, they "were carefully handled and cherished and always came back in good gild."

In add-on to the modest library, some of the adults also served as "living books." Much of the pedagogy was washed under the radar, with army camp officials being told that the children were learning High german or playing games.

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"My husband was one of the [educators] in the children's block," Kraus explained. "He and other adults who remembered stories similar Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels or The Count of Monte Cristo went from one grouping [of children divided by historic period group] to another, and in installments [they] would tell them a chapter. There were no other materials [bachelor]. It was all oral."

No documentation exists that explains the reasoning behind the cosmos of the Theresienstadt family campsite and information technology has been much debated by historians. In 2002, the Czech-Israeli writer and Auschwitz family camp survivor Ruth Bondy described the children'due south block as a "strange and wonderful enclave."

In her 2002 essay "Games in the Shadow of the Crematoria" (translated from the original Hebrew), she wrote that "so far, no official documents that attest to its existence accept been constitute in the German archives. It is as if there never was a children'south block. The children's singing has been swept away by the air current."

Still, despite the incredible privileges afforded to the Czech prisoners in this compound, they suffered from cold, starvation, illness and a mortality rate comparable to other parts of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

"We were all hungry and were aware that our lives would end in a few months in the gas chambers," Kraus told The Media Line.

A Chilling Encounter with Dr. Mengele

In March 1944, the Nazis began liquidating the family camp and sent more than one-half of the prisoners to die in the gas chambers. Kraus and others were expected to become the same route; even so, the Germans decided to send some of the remaining survivors who were still athletic and somewhat healthy to Federal republic of germany for forced labor.

Kraus recalls how a chilling encounter with the notorious Dr. Mengele would allow her to narrowly escape the fate of thousands of others in the family camp.

"I was chosen by Dr. Mengele together with i,500 women to be sent to Germany to work and that'south how we survived," Kraus said. "We were sent to slave labor."

Beyond the book'due south invaluable Holocaust testimony, including Kraus' imprisonment in various labor camps beyond Germany besides as her experiences in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the memoir also details her come across with her time to come husband, Otto Kraus, after the war and how the two immigrated to Israel in 1949 presently after the state's establishment. Kraus further discusses her love of painting, which began under the well-known artist and educator Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, who taught her in the Theresienstadt Ghetto.

A photo of Dita Kraus in her home in Israel, taken recently. (Courtesy)

But the incredible story of the children's block and its tiny library is perhaps the most inspiring chemical element of Kraus' memoir.

"Most of the staff on the Kinderblock [children's cake] were men and women barely xx years onetime," Kraus writes in her book. "They were enlightened of their approaching death and must accept been terrified. Nonetheless they spent their remaining days with the children, creating for them a kind of haven in this hell. They are, in my optics, the real heroes of Auschwitz."

A Delayed Life: The True Story of the Librarian of Auschwitz will be released by Penguin Books on February vi, 2020, and will also be available for purchase from Amazon.com on February 11.

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Source: https://themedialine.org/life-lines/the-girl-who-ran-auschwitzs-secret-library/

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