I wish I knew how you all are; how my baby sister is and what’s happening in Great Britain. I hold on to the belief that I will see you all again, my dearest friends. Until then, freedom through reading. D x
A freezing winter slithered into spring, but the icy heart of the ghetto remained frozen. Despite the cold, hunger and soaring death rates, Dorotha had much to distract her. News of the library had spread like a brisk wind. It had started with Sundays at their home, and soon word had got out that there was a girl in the ghetto with a briefcase full of books, willing to deliver to anyone who needed one.
Four months on from the ghetto library’s unofficial opening, one book at a time, it was fast becoming an invaluable service. There was nothing official about it. No library cards, no stamps, no records. Just books slipped into an outstretched hand as shepassed a doorway, or delivered surreptitiously to the back door of a workshop.
Dorotha’s favourite times were Sundays, when the ever-present German presence eased a little, and patrons were free on their only day off to come to their home to choose their books.
One Sunday, in April, the letterbox rattled and Dorotha could sense the women’s impatience seeping through the cracks.
‘Are you ready, Dorotha?’ Mrs Mordkowicz asked.
‘Can I have another minute just to tidy up a little?’ Dorotha replied, straightening the books on the bed. Books were spread all over the tiny room like dominoes.
‘What are we waiting for here?’ called a woman’s voice through the letterbox. ‘We don’t have the patience of Job!’
‘No, you can’t have a minute, Dorotha,’ laughed Mrs Mordkowicz. ‘Your patrons are not the waiting type. Besides, who cares about the room. They’re here for the books!’
Dorotha opened the door, and the women streamed in, eyes bright and beady as birds, hurriedly scanning the selection.
‘Stand back,’ Ruth remarked. ‘Or we’ll get trampled underfoot.’ The room was so small, they had to admit five at a time to make their book selection, with the rest queueing outside up the corridor for their turn. Some people joined the queue because they thought there might be food rations at the end of it, and looked disgruntled to find it was books, not bread on offer.
In the main, though, their patrons were fiercely loyal, with the women of the straw boot workshop, the tailoring and glove factories their most voracious customers.
There was an unofficial system, which Dorotha and Ruth did their best to document on scraps of paper, whereby when a book was borrowed, it was on the understanding that it was brought back when it was finished. It was built on trust and a shared understanding of how valuable reading was. The reality of issuing fines in the ghetto was laughable. There was the oddbook that went out and never came back, but on the whole her patrons were trustworthy. They had even taken to bringing in books of their own that they had read so that they might borrow more than one at a time. And even on occasion, if they could spare it, a little food in return for two books.
On the rare occasions when books did not return, Dorotha could never shake the dreadful suspicion that the reason was because the borrower had vanished from the ghetto. After the GreatSperre, smaller selections happened all the time. They all lived with the constant dread of rounding a corner to see a random selection under way, which made the permanence and solidity of books all the more valuable.
There was a touching solicitude to the way the women all viewed the library as theirs.
‘About time,’ said the first woman to bustle in through the door. ‘You need to open our library more promptly. Time is not on our side.’
Ruth and Dorotha exchanged an amused look. No one messed with Iris Cohen. She was the unofficial chief female of the straw shoe factory, and had even led a strike there in the early days of the ghetto, which resulted in a spoonful more soup in the midday ration. Even the Germans seemed to hold her in somewhat higher regard. Rumour had it she had something on the chairman and knew secrets about him from before the war. No one knew for certain, but there was no denying she always had lard, bread and a little more sugar squirrelled away in her cupboards.
‘What would you like today, Mrs Cohen?’ Ruth asked. ‘We have a copy ofWar and Peacein a Polish translation.’
‘Pff,’ she tutted, batting away the book. ‘What do I want with that? I’m living in a bloody war. I just want to escape. Give me a good detective novel.’
She pulled a roll-up from her pocket and lit it with a nicotine-stained finger. ‘Books are a narcotic for me. After reading a good detective story, my head is clogged up so that I forget about the world around me, and that is my good fortune.’
Dorotha nodded. ‘I understand, Mrs Cohen. I have a couple of Ethel M. Dell and Vicki Baum books in... or perhaps you’d prefer something in Yiddish.’ But she trailed off. She could see Mrs Cohen’s attention had been diverted elsewhere.
‘Read ’em all. Now that,’ she announced, pointing her cigarette at Dorotha’s briefcase, ‘is what I need.The Secret Garden... I’ve been wanting to read that since before the war.’
Her usual starchiness evaporated.
‘Oh, Mrs Cohen,’ Dorotha murmured. ‘I don’t know how that got in there. That was my sister’s. It’s not for...’ She trailed off. Oh, what did it matter? They’d read it countless times before. Who was she to keep a good book to herself and deprive someone else of the escapism and indulgence of such a story?
‘It’s yours, Mrs Cohen,’ she said, picking it up and tucking it in the older woman’s bag.
‘I know what a voracious reader you are; why not take a Vicki Baum title too?’
Mrs Cohen looked at her curiously, shrewd grey eyes burning into hers.
‘You’re a good girl. Take this for yourself.’ She tucked a brown package into Dorotha’s hand. ‘It’s a little lard, and I’ve also made a hair dye for you. It’s mostly old coffee grounds, but it seems to work.’ She patted her dark hair. ‘You’d never know my real colour, eh!’
She went to protest but Mrs Cohen gripped her arm with surprising strength.
‘My girl, it’s not for vanity. Who wants to look old and infirm these days?’
