Ghetto library

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As Ghetto Library were libraries in the ghettos of the Nazi occupation during the Second World War called.

Historical classification

With the ghettoization of the Jewish population, some libraries were created or continued to exist within the ghettos. There were commercial lending libraries that could be used for a fee , as well as planned book collections with children's literature , fiction , non-fiction , Yiddish and religious literature. The libraries served, on the one hand, to distract from everyday barbarism , and, on the other hand, they served for forbidden teaching, further education and the preservation of traditions and culture under the given circumstances. The library holdings consisted of books brought by people who have already been deported, literature available on site and the closed libraries of Jewish institutions. The majority of the prisoners in the ghettos were physically and mentally unable to use the libraries due to forced labor , torture and lack. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence in the literature of how - especially in the case of children - the literature helped to at least temporarily suppress the extreme everyday life of the camp.

“We linger a long way from everything that
000we once liked so much.
You can only lead us back
000through appropriate reading, so
that a ray of the earlier world
000illuminates the darkness here ”
- poem by a prisoner, addressed to the head of the ghetto central library Theresienstadt

Classification of the term "Ghetto Library"

In the thesaurus of the USC Shoah Foundation, the term “Ghetto Library” is listed on page 5 under the heading “Cultural and Social Life”. In the online archive of the USC Shoah Foundation, the persecuted Gerda Pavlikova (interview code 27065), Li`on Kovner (interview code 41233) and Marion Stokvis (interview code 4190) report on the libraries in the ghetto.

Libraries in ghettos

The Ghetto Central Library in Theresienstadt

The central library was founded on November 17, 1942. It was headed by Emil Utitz . When it was founded, there were around 4,000 volumes in the library. Since most of the holdings of liquidated Jewish institutions came into the holdings, there was a lot of humanities literature as well as Judaica and Hebraica . Above all, there was a lack of fiction . The library staff tried to compensate for this, for example, with traveling libraries. The central library supplied the “youth homes with literature for the forbidden lessons, the music department with sheet music, the rabbinate with prayer books and the Christian denominational groups with relevant literature”. Whenever deportations took place, the library always lost part of its holdings. People took the books with them to death. In 1943 the library employed 17 people. They were exposed to an increased risk of infection with diseases from public traffic. Most died in the ghetto or were murdered in Auschwitz. The library served as a showpiece for Nazi propaganda .

Käthe Starke-Goldschmidt worked as a librarian in the ghetto central library . Your book, The Führer Gives the Jews a City , contains a report on the ghetto central library. The Theresienstadt bundle that she has secured contains, among other things, pictures from the Ghetto Central Library, drawn by the Viennese artist Alfred Bergel . The bundle is in the Altona Museum as a deposit . The special position of Theresienstadt within the death camps under National Socialism must be taken into account. This is discussed in detail in the main article in the Theresienstadt concentration camp .

Libraries in the Lodz Ghetto

All Jewish libraries in Lodz were dissolved by the National Socialist regime in 1939/1940. The YW Sonnenberg lending library was an exception. This existed since 1931 and continued until the ghetto was dissolved . With a stock of 7500 volumes, 4000 readers were supplied with literature. A loan fee of 1 mark, later 2 marks, and a deposit of 5 marks had to be paid for the use of the books. Despite these high fees, the ghetto chronicle reports long queues in front of the lending library. The second lending library was opened by the bookseller S. Atlasberg with 2000 volumes. The admission of 2000 readers meant that the entire collection was in constant use. In addition to this, there were private individuals who loaned Yiddish books. To do this, they put up signs on the front doors. When people were deported, they left their books behind. These books were collected and made available to the children and young people in the ghetto.

Libraries in the Warsaw Ghetto

In Warsaw, the publisher Leib Schur (“Tomor” publishing house, founded in Vilnius in 1927 ) was able to illegally collect 1,500 volumes in his ghetto apartment. The library was expanded with funds from the Jewish self-help organization and contained the independent library “Das Leben”, whose holdings were retained as a whole. The books were cataloged by Schur and his assistant and he was granted a license in 1941 to make the library accessible to all. Schur wanted to build up the remaining books in the ghetto into a “large Jewish public library” and in doing so undertook great privations. The Warsaw librarian (Warsaw City Library) Batia (Bashe) Temkin-Berman built a popular children's library under the umbrella of the CENTOS charity with around 5,000 volumes. Children's hospitals, orphanages and street children were also supplied with books. The children's library organized readings and children's events:

“The thirst for knowledge of the children was admirable under the terrible living conditions in the ghetto. […] Many appeared in the fantastic parade of cloths, blankets and rags. But almost every day they came to the library with the request for a nice book that would make them forget hunger "

- Batia Temkin-Berman

The story of the children's library ends with the deportation of the children from the Warsaw Ghetto in June 1942. Leib Schur ended his life with the liquidation and destruction of his library.

Libraries in the Vilnius Ghetto

In Ghetto Vilna , the library of the Havrah Mefitsei Haskalah (Society for the Proclamation of Enlightenment) was opened by the librarian Herman Kruk shortly after the establishment of the ghetto on July 7, 1941 . Kruk was able to distract many people in this time of terror through considerable commitment with his employees, including Dina Abramowicz . On December 13, 1942, the loan of the 100,000. Book will be celebrated with a ceremony. One student wrote this down in his diary:

“Today the ghetto celebrates the loan of the library's 100,000 books. […] Reading is also my greatest pleasure here. The book connects us with the future and with the world. Using 100,000 books is a big deal and the ghetto is rightly proud of it. "

Branch offices were set up in the prison, in the youth club and in the factories where the slave laborers were employed. The librarians invested a lot of time in cataloging the books. A reading room was set up and the library was open seven days a week. In a report on the ghetto library, Herman Kruk goes into detail on reading behavior and reading per se in the ghetto. He kept numerous statistics. As he reads in the ghetto, he remarks:

“Vilna drowned in Jewish blood. It had to seem completely alien to think of books and reading. […] Reading books in the ghetto - hardly anyone could relate to this idea. At least that's how it looked on September 8th (1941) when the library was confiscated. But when the library opened for ghetto readers on September 15, it became clear that the earlier assumptions had been far removed from reality: the new ghetto citizens were pushing for the books like thirsty lambs. The many terrible events could not deter the children or most of the adults. [...] Man endures hunger, hardship and pain, but not loneliness "

The history of the ghetto library ends with the liquidation of the ghetto in September 1943.

Web links

literature

  • Raimund Dehmlow (Ed.): Books and Libraries in Ghettos and Camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , here p. 50 .
  • Käthe Starke: The Führer gives the Jews a city: pictures, impressions, reports, documents . Haude and Spener, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-7759-0174-4 .
  • Emil Utitz: Psychology of Life in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (Vienna: Sexl, 1948)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rolf D. Krause: Reading-Gleanings. Reading behavior in the National Socialist persecution sites: Comments on the state of research . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , p. 9-28 .
  2. ^ A b c David Shavit: Jewish libraries in the Polish ghettos of the Nazi era . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , p. 57-82 .
  3. ^ Kornelia Richter: Reading in the Theresienstadt Ghetto . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , p. 43–55 , here p. 50 .
  4. ↑ USC Shoah Foundation, 'USC Shoah Foundation Institute Thesaurus', 2012 sfi.usc.edu (PDF).
  5. ↑ USCShoahFoundation Visual Online Archive, 'VHA Online', 2015 vhaonline.usc.edu
  6. ^ Kornelia Richter: Reading in the Theresienstadt Ghetto . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , p. 43–55 , here p. 48 .
  7. ^ Karl Braun: On the role of a reading institution in the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 . Bohemia: Journal of the History and Culture of the Bohemian Lands. 40, 1999, pp. 367-386.
  8. ^ Digital Collections - Yad Vashem, 'Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, Prof. Dr. Heinrich Klang in the Library, from a Nazi Propaganda Film, 1944. ', call number 29983 yadvashem.org
  9. ^ Emil Utitz: Psychology of Life in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. Sexl, Vienna 1948.
  10. ↑ Miriam Intrator: The Theresienstadt Ghetto Central Library, Books and Reading. In: Y ear-Book / Leo Baeck Institute. 50, 2005, pp. 3-28.
  11. ↑ Maria Kühn-Ludewig: Hunger for the Printed Word: Books and Libraries in the Lodz Ghetto (1940–1944) . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , p. 83-96 .
  12. ^ Maria Kühn-Ludewig: The librarian Batia-Temkin Berman (1907–1953) and your children's library in the Warsaw Ghetto . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , p. 103–118 , here p. 112 .
  13. ^ David Shavit: Jewish Libraries in the Polish Ghettos of the Nazi Era . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , p. 73 .
  14. ^ David Shavit: Jewish Libraries in the Polish Ghettos of the Nazi Era . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , p. 63 .
  15. ↑ Dina Abramowicz: The library in the Vilna ghetto . In: Raimund Dehmlow (ed.): Books and libraries in ghettos and camps (1933–1945) (=  Small historical series . No. No. 3 ). Laurentius, Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-931614-03-4 , p. 119-131 .
  16. ↑ Kruk, Herman, Diary Fo the Vilna Ghetto, ed. By Mordecai W. Bernstein, Memoirs Series, 1 (New York: YIVO, 1961)
  17. ^ Kruk, Hermann, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps; 1939–1944, ed. By Binyamin Harshav (New Haven, Conn .: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 2002)
  18. ↑ Maria Kühn-Ludewig (Ed.): Hermann Kruk, Librarian And Chronicler In The Wilna Ghetto. Laurentius / special issue, 1988 (Seelze: S. Zoller, 1988)
  19. ↑ Maria Kühn-Ludewig (Ed.): Hermann Kruk (1897-1944): Librarian And Chronicler In The Wilna Ghetto (1941-1943). Laurentius special issue, 2., ext. u. verb. Edition (Hanover: Laurentius-Verlag, 1990)
  20. ↑ Schroeter, Gudrun, Words from a Destroyed World: The Ghetto in Wilna, Art And Society, Studies on Culture in the 20th and 21st Centuries, Volume 4 (St. Ingbert: Röhrig, 2008) p. 208 f.