In the following months Dita found a home with her friend Margit in the spa town of Tepice. Otto wrote to her every day. A year after they had first bumped into each other he said: “Why don’t you come to Prague? I can’t love you from a distance.” They married in 1947. Find sources: "Antonio Iturbe"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( November 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) In 2014, Iturbe started a new children's literature series: La Isla de Susú, which is currently at its fourth book into the series, it has also been translated to Korean. In 2017, he published A cielo abierto about the lives of pioneering French air mail pilots Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (best known as the author of The Little Prince), Jean Mermoz and Henri Guillaumet. To date the novel has been translated into six languages; including into English, as The Prince of the Skies. The novel was awarded the Premio Biblioteca Breve in 2017. [5] Professor [ edit ]

The Librarian of Auschwitz - Macmillan The Librarian of Auschwitz - Macmillan

Fredy, then aged 27, was an inspirational educator who created a small oasis of relative normality within the death camp. Dita had known him from her childhood in Prague, where he was her sports instructor. She had met him again in the Terezin Ghetto, where he was running the department for youths and children at the Jewish ghetto administration.I'm not sure why this is considered a teen book--it is as intense as any I have read on this time period. Bearing that in mind, I'm not sure how a lot of kids would respond to reading it. Please do a thorough review with the Common Sense Media information, especially the violence section, before having your child read it. It's definitely not for the middle school crowd; mature high schoolers will probably be okay with it and be able to take away the overall message without being overwhelmed by human's cruelty to other humans. The sudden death of her mentor Fredy in March 1944 was traumatic for the children. Informed of the impending mass murder on March 8 1944, Fredy was asked to lead an uprising. Shortly after, he was found in a coma from an overdose of sleeping pills. Dita learned much later that Jewish doctors, worried about his safety, had drugged him to avoid conflict, but misjudged the dose. She told us of the carefree childhood she’d had in a secular home. Until she was eight she didn’t even know she was Jewish. “When I was in second grade, I found a piece of paper on my desk with the words, ‘You are a Jew’. I went home and asked: ‘Mum, what is a Jew?’ She explained that people have different religions, Christians, Protestants and Jews in Czechoslovakia. I said: ‘And we are Jews?’ The answer was a simple ‘yes’.”

Librarian of Auschwitz: The heart-breaking Sunday Times The Librarian of Auschwitz: The heart-breaking Sunday Times

Dita’s father Hans died of starvation at the camp aged 44. In July 1944, Dita and her mother were among 1000 women sent by Mengele to a work camp in Hamburg. From there she was sent to Bergen-Belsen. “Even without gas chambers, the camp was a horrific killing machine, where the starving prisoners died by the thousands.” an unforgettable, heartbreaking novel." — Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Librarian of Auschwitz It wasn't an extensive library. In fact, it consisted of eight books and some of them were in poor condition. But they were books. In this incredibly dark place, they were a reminder of less sombre times, when words rang out more loudly than machine guns...' The only title Dita can remember is A Short History of the World, by HG Wells, in Czech. Her friend, Auschwitz survivor Ruth Bondy, who recently passed away, also remembered a geographical atlas and something by Sigmund Freud. Another survivor friend, Eva Merova, says there was a book of short stories by Czech writer Karel Capek. Educators would borrow books to teach the alphabet to the younger children. “As there were no pencils or papers to make notes I had to remember who took what at the end of each day.” By 1941 they were evicted again from the rented flat where they lived with her grandparents. By now they were squashed into a room in an apartment shared by another family in the part of the city which in the past had been the Jewish ghetto.

For readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and The Choice: this is the story of the smallest library in the world - and the most dangerous. Born in Zaragoza, his family moved to Barcelona and Iturbe grew up in the Barceloneta neighbourhood. He pursued a bachelor's degree in journalism at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, where he graduated in 1991. He balanced his studies with several jobs: parking guard, baker, and an auditor. His first job as a journalist, was in a local Barcelona television show, Televisió de Ciutat Vella, where he worked as a reporter. The officers have no idea that in the family camp in Auschwitz, on top of the dark mud into which everything sinks, Alfred Hirsch has established a school. They don’t know it, and it’s essential that they should not know it. Some inmates didn’t believe it was possible. They thought Hirsch was crazy, or naïve: How could you teach children in this brutal extermination camp where everything is forbidden? But Hirsch would smile. He was always smiling enigmatically, as if he knew something that no one else did. It doesn’t matter how many schools the Nazis close, he would say to them. Each time someone stops to tell a story and children listen, a school has been established. Although prisoners were only considered children until the age of 14, Fredy succeeded in getting those between the age of 14-16 designated as “assistants”, doing all types of work from sweeping the floor or helping with the distribution of the daily soup. After graduating, he created the free magazine Gratix, which he directed and, after taking part in various short media projects, in 1993 got into being the chief supervisor of the supplement television of El Periódico. Subsequently, he became editor of cinema-magazine Fantastic Magazine.

The librarian of Auschwitz - The Jewish Chronicle The librarian of Auschwitz - The Jewish Chronicle

He has belonged to the committee of the selection Bibliotecas de Barcelona and has been honoured President of the Association of Cultural Journalists of Catalonia. In Zaragoza, he has been the at the panel experts in the Asociación Miguel Fleta. During these years Iturbe has also been a postgraduate professor at the Master of Cultural Journalism at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Master of Edition at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. He has given lectures as a guest-professor in the faculties of Journalism at the Universidad Blanquerna, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and at the Universitad Abat Oliba. While waiting for the quarantine to be lifted so they could return to Prague, Dita’s mother became ill on June 27 1945. She died two days later, leaving her daughter an orphan, a few weeks short of her sixteenth birthday. Like Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, it’s a sophisticated novel with mature themes, delivering an emotionally searing reading experience. An important novel that will stand with other powerful testaments from the Holocaust era." — Booklist, starred review, on The Librarian of Auschwitz

In 1996, he was involved in the emerging book magazine Que Leer, in which he held the position of chief editor, deputy director and, since 2008, director. Throughout these years Iturbe also took part, among many media endeavours, such as the magazine Fotogramas, the book section of Protagonistas in the national radio broadcaster Onda Cero, or in cultural divulgation for Ona Catalana, Icat FM or La Cope de Bilbao, and in cultural supplements for journals La Vanguardia and Avui.