She looked down at the treasures in her hands. ‘I’ll comb every inch of this hellhole if I must, and hunt out every hidden book. Whatever the cost. That bastard just reminded me why we need a library in the ghetto.’
Dorotha stared at Biebow’s car as it vanished through the heavily guarded entrance to the ghetto and made a vow.
‘These books will still be here when his neck is snapped and he’s hanging from his own gallows.’
10
Dorotha
Occupied Poland, December 1942
‘Libertatem per Lectio’
Bulletin No. 98
Friends. Fragile joy. I’m a librarian once more! It’s a small underground library. Our ‘grand’ library is in a stationery cupboard. Can you imagine such a thing? It makes me wonder what innovations you’ve all brought about in England. Friends, I can’t explain what joy reading brings to ghetto prisoners. I am alive once more.
Yours in defiance,
Dorotha
Three months after the maelstrom of the GreatSperre, Dorotha had made good on her promise. The stationery cupboard at the back of the Department of Vital Statistics was full to bursting with rescued books and Torah scrolls. The Nazi regime had burnt books they found ‘undesirable’. Now, Dorotha was the keeper of her own secret library, rammed full of undesirable books, and the thought could not be sweeter.
Dorotha doubted she would ever feel joy again. That emotion had been consigned to a room in the back of her mind and walled in brick by brick. But she couldgivejoy, book by book.
It was late afternoon on a freezing Sunday in deep December. Fingers of frost etched lacy patterns on the inside of the window panes and naked hunger gripped. Dorotha had long ago decided to put food to the back of her mind and feast on books instead.
Sunday was the ghetto prisoners’ only day off, and was used to wash clothes, rest, and scrape together rations for the week ahead. But Mrs Mordkowicz had promised Dorotha she would do her chores for her, urging Dorotha to go and tend to her library instead. It was the safest time of the week, as Biebow and his staff stayed away from the ghetto on Sundays, luxuriating in their splendid stolen homes outside the walls of the ghetto. Free from the incessant clack of typewriters and barked German orders, the office was quiet, leaving her in peace to curate and catalogue their 2,000 rescued volumes.
Dorotha ran her fingers over the book spines with so much care she might be a physician treating an elderly patient.
Just being around books, breathing in the smell of leather, paper and ink, restored a sliver of her humanity.
She felt a hand on her back and jumped.
‘Sorry to scare you,’ rang out a soft voice in the gloom.
‘Mr Weiss. What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to talk to you about the library.’
‘I thought you said the less you knew the better?’
He looked over her shoulder, green eyes assessing her little library.
‘What can I say? My curiosity got the better of me. I have to say, Dorotha, you’ve surpassed my expectations. There are some intriguing books here.’
He reached out and picked up a dense title by Jakob Wassermann.
‘The intelligentsia will appreciate this.’
‘With respect, Mr Weiss, I don’t intend to cater just for the intelligentsia. The women whose fingers are bleeding from sewing for thirteen hours in a workshop need escape too.’
Her eyes sparkled as she gestured to the two bookcases full of adventure and detective novels.
‘I’ve a feeling this is what they’ll want. These were always popular with women in my old library, along with romance.’
He smiled. It was rare to see her boss smile, but when he did, she noticed a dimple on his chin that peeled away some of his seriousness.
