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But as they slunk deeper into the alley for a way to escape, they didn’t just leave Maria behind; they also left their childhood, their innocence. It had been sloughed off, a husk which was now too small to ever fit again, leaving them raw and vulnerable in this dangerous new world of war.
When you have something to tell, it will simply burst from you and you won’t be able to stop it.”
they were not only reading books that should be destroyed; they were discussing ideals that Hitler was determined to pull out by the roots, to stamp out of existence until minds were left without free thought.
Good books were like amazing sunsets or awe-inspiring landscapes, better enjoyed with someone else. There was no greater experience in the world than sharing the love of a book, discussing its finer points, and reliving the story all over again.
It whispered to her in the silence, a promise only a book can make to a reader, to offer a journey unique to them, tailored to the path that life had led them.
There was power in literature. Brilliant and undeniable. Books inspired free thought and empathy, an overall understanding and acceptance of everyone. In the pages of books that were burned and banned and ripped apart for pulping, Zofia had found herself. These were the parts of her that were human and strong and loving, parts that understood lives she had never led.
We cannot let the atrocities and persecution of the Jews slip between the cracks of history. We cannot allow education to be stifled or cultures to be erased or books to be banned. Nor can we let the memory of those brave men and women who fought for freedom and what is right disappear in the turning pages of time.
WHEN HITLER FIRST TOOK Poland, his intent was to relocate or murder 85 percent of Poles, leaving around 15 percent to be used for slave labor, along with completely eradicating the Jewish population.
murder of almost three million Polish Jews and almost two million non-Jewish Polish civilians.
One hundred thousand doctors, lawyers, professors, scientists, politicians, and other social elites were put to death. Near Warsaw, they were arrested and taken to Kampinos Forest on the outskirts of Palmiry, where they were shot over open mass graves.
In the ghetto, suitcases were used to lend out books from private libraries. One particularly extraordinary man named Leyb Shur amassed so many books in Yiddish that he had to sleep in the hallway of his three-bedroom apartment and then hanged himself when he was told he would be forced to move and could not bring his books.
Basia Berman, the librarian mentioned in The Keeper of Hidden Books. She worked for the Warsaw Public Library. After being forced into the ghetto, she created and ran a secret children’s library, which she referred to as CENTOS, a center to help care for orphaned children.
The Polish Underground State was the most organized resistance group in Europe during the Nazi occupation.
In 1942, Żegota was formed, a branch that helped Jews escape from the ghetto and worked to keep them safely hidden on the Polish side.
