The Keeper of Hidden Books

by Madeline Martin

violent anti-Semitism and religion-specific segregation were not relegated to the past. In the last few years, Zofia had seen with her own eyes the boycotts of Jewish businesses, the shattered windows in homes and shops, as well as the slanderous graffiti. Even at the University of Warsaw, there were separate benches for Jewish students and limitations on enrollment.

The world was full of extraordinary women.

These books were Poland’s legacy. Generations of learning and foundational ideas were penned in these pages. The centuries of fighting for freedom, names of heroes that might have been lost to history were they not painstakingly written down. What might be forever erased from the world’s knowledge with the destruction of just a single book?

The dire importance of their Bandit Book Club struck her anew. And why Hitler so feared the books he banned. 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.

Marta Krakowska once told me that when a story was ready to be told, it would pour out, that my pen would not be able to keep up.

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. The world also needs to remember to never take for granted what has been gifted to us through the sacrifice of others: the right to an education and learning, the power and luxury of freedom, and the beauty to appreciate the routine of simple, everyday life.

I have died a thousand deaths, but that did not define me. Instead, I lived a thousand lives and it is for that reason that I now can write our story for future generations to always remember.