The department, established in November 1940, also kept a secret daily journal of events in the ghetto calledThe Chronicle of theLódz Ghetto. A team of writers, diarists and academics contributed to it. Her superior, Oscar Weiss, edited it, and from time to time, Dorotha also wrote her own observations. The Germans knew nothing about it, and Oscar was meticulous in his editing in case they discovered it. It was deliberately never critical of Rumkowski or the Germans, and that way it could remain an important source for understanding daily life, as well as a means of bearing witness for future generations.
Dorotha liked that idea, that words on a page could stand as a written testimony, and who knew? Maybe eighty years from now, because of theChronicle, people would learn about the cruelty and madness of the Lódz ghetto.
That is why she, too, kept her own, more clandestine, record.
She waited until Mr Weiss was in his office and Ruth in the toilet before she pulled out a dog-eared notebook from under a loose floorboard beneath her desk. The faded words ‘Libertatem per Lectio’were etched on the front in ink. Mildew and damp were already creeping across its pages.
Dorotha picked up her pen.
Friday 4 September 1942.
Dear Secret Society of Librarians,
The Kripo emptied the hospitals last night.
Rumours sweep the ghetto every day. A cloud of uncertainty grips us. Old people, children and the sick are being slaughtered. My old library assistant, Ruth Mordkowicz, and her mother are now living with us. It does us all good to have new people in our midst. After work, I have promised I will readThe SecretGardento the children in the orphanage. There are nearly a hundred of them there. Their parents have been removed from the ghetto by the Nazis...
Then she stopped and crossed out the last line.
Her record was not public, so it was important she did not censor herself. ‘There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.’ She murmured Virginia Woolf’s words under her breath and started again.
Their parents have been sent to their deaths. How can I be sure of this? I can’t, but we all know that when a person who can’t work is sent away, they are surely being sent to their deaths.
Ruth Mordkowicz just told me she saw Biebow oversee a selection in which hundreds of men, women and children from Zdun´ska Wola were massacred and thrown into a pit. That is not ‘administration’. That is mass-murder.
Reading to the children reminds me of what it is to be human and that, before the ghetto, I was a librarian. And God willing, I will be again one day.
Your Dorotha
She wanted to write more but, hearing footsteps, she stuffed the notebook back under the floorboard and moved the waste bin over it.
The notebook wasn’t just a means of documenting. It also gave her a tangible link to the Secret Society. Ink on a page was a fair substitute for the spoken word. It also kept her friends alive in her mind in a way that felt meaningful while also reminding her of the society’s vow at the outbreak of war. The words of that first bulletin they sent her were engrained in her heart.
If people can’t get to the books, we take books to the people.
Later that afternoon, Mr Weiss emerged from his office again, and came over to her desk to look at some of her documents. The events of the morning, though, were acting as a catalyst on Dorotha’s mind. When he finished his checks, she blurted out, ‘Mr Weiss, while I have you...’ She trailed off.
He raised one eyebrow. ‘Here goes.’
Plucking up the courage, Dorotha began again. ‘How about I start a library service in the ghetto? Remember I offered before?’
He looked at her, not unkindly. ‘Dorotha, I admire your persistence, but it’s impossible. We cannot do anything to draw attention to ourselves, and you can only imagine how the Germans would react if they knew the ghetto had a lending library.’
‘But they tolerate the House of Culture on Krawiecka Street,’ she pointed out. ‘If they know we put on plays, concerts and poetry recitals, why would they object to the loaning of books?’
‘There is always a German presence and a censor in attendance at the House of Culture,’ he pointed out. ‘Besides, there are people who loan out Yiddish books. I’ve seen posters in windows.’
‘But I’d offer to take bookstopeople, especially those who are housebound.’
‘I’m sorry, Dorotha, but no. Your passion is a breath of fresh air, but if Biebow got wind of it, it would jeopardise theChronicle.’
‘So, what?Unser Einziger Weg Ist – Arbeit!’ she said mockingly.
‘Yes,’ he agreed sadly. ‘As the chairman is so fond of saying, our only path is work.’
He touched her cheek. ‘It’s how we will survive. This ghetto is highly profitable to the Reich. Our slave labour is making them many millions. The longer we work, the longer we live.’
Dorotha’s lower back was still aching at the end of the day from the Kripo’s boot as she walked the dusty road to the orphanage to fulfil her promise. She might not have Mr Weiss’s permission to start a lending library, but she could still take books to people who needed them the most in the ghetto – to children, especially.
