A Delayed Life: The True Story of the Librarian of Auschwitz

by Dita Kraus

Overview

A Delayed Life is the breathtaking memoir that tells the story of Dita Kraus, the real-life Librarian of Auschwitz.

Dita Kraus grew up in Prague in an intellectual, middle-class Jewish family. She went to school, played with her friends, and never thought of herself as being different—until the advent of the Holocaust. Torn from her home, Dita was sent to Auschwitz with her family.

From her time in the children’s block of Auschwitz to her liberation from the camps and on into her adulthood, Dita’s powerful memoir sheds light on an incredible life—one that is delayed no longer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250760906
Publisher:	Feiwel & Friends
Publication date:	07/02/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	342
Sales rank:	247,307
Lexile:	HL960L (what's this?)
File size:	20 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Dita Kraus is a Holocaust survivor and the real-life Librarian of Auschwitz. As a young girl, she was entrusted with books that Auschwitz prisoners had managed to smuggle into the camp, as recounted in her memoir A Delayed Life. Dita now lives in Israel, where she paints flowers and enjoys the company of her son, her four grandchildren, and her four great-grandchildren.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Did I Call It a Delayed Life? vii

Part I 1929-1942

1 Childhood 3

2 Anita 17

3 Gerta 20

4 Grandfather 40

5 The Operation 45

6 Zd'ár 50

7 Maturing 58

8 Ludvik and Manya 60

9 Fear 63

Part II 1942-1945

The War Tears

10 Terezin 82

11 Auschwitz-Birkenau, Camp BIIb 92

12 Latrine 97

13 Life in the Camp 99

14 Hamburg 110

15 Air Raids 117

16 My Italian Boyfriend 121

17 Neugraben 125

18 Tiefstack 130

19 Bergen-Belsen? Close to Starvation 135

120 Liberation 144

21 Bubi 149

22 After the Liberation 154

23 Grave 164

24 Return to Prague 167

Part III 1945-21st Century

25 First Weeks in Prague 172

26 Meeting Otto 180

27 Mausi 183

28 Teplice 185

29 The Wedding 191

30 The Kraus Factory 199

31 A New Political Reality 207

32 Journey to Israel 218

33 In the Village 227

34 Givat Chaim 232

35 My Career as a Cobbler 244

36 Dining Room 260

37 A New Job for Otto 265

38 Locusts 268

39 Hadassim 273

40 Rosh Pina 279

41 About Friends 283

42 Later Years 285

43 Otto's Writings 290

44 At the Imperial Museum 292

45 Trips and Returns; Journey to Japan 295

46 A Nostalgic Journey 305

47 Peter/Shimon 309

48 Ronny 313

49 Michaela 316

50 Stolperstein 331

51 Where Do I Feel at Home? 334

52 I Need Not Delay Anymore 335

Acknowledgments 337

About the Author 339

Editorial Reviews

03/01/2020

Kraus tells her story of growing up in the Czechoslovakia during World War II. At 14, Kraus and her family were first sent to the ghetto of Terezín, followed by Auschwitz and, later, manual labor at Neuengamme. She movingly describes experiencing crushing hunger and thirst when locked in Bergen-Belsen for three days with no food or water save a dripping bathroom pipe after the camp was abandoned. Recounting life after the war, Kraus relays how she and her husband were targeted owing to her husband's successful business in Prague. The couple fled to Israel in the 1950s, a country still in its infancy as far as infrastructure. The subtitle is an allusion to Antonio Iturbe and Lilit Thwaite's novel The Library of Auschwitz, based on the true story of Kraus's experience of smuggling books into Auschwitz. A Delayed Life makes passing reference to Kraus's role as librarian in Auschwitz, and those interested in learning more about Kraus can continue their reading with Iturbe and Thwaite's work. VERDICT A story of survival that is rare in its coverage of life before and after the Holocaust, addressing the difficult question of what comes after such tragedy.—Stacy Shaw, Denver

Library Journal