"People were literally starving for any kind of reading": The Theresienstadt Ghetto Central Library, 1942-1945

Jews crowded into the ghettos and concentration camps of World War II were desperate for any avenue of resistance or escape, not only physically but also mentally. In the ghetto concentration camp Theresienstadt, the prisoner-run Ghetto Central Library, complete with bookmobile system, reading room, and branch libraries, served as a reminder that minds and imaginations remained active and free, even amidst devastating persecution. With the inclusion of Jewish book collections confiscated by the Nazis, it grew to 100,000 volumes. Brought to the Jewish Museum of Prague Library after liberation, the books are still being returned, whenever possible, to original owners. Ghettos and concentration camps were integral components in the systematic genocide of Jews during World War II. This article will examine one of these camps, Theresienstadt, which, as will be explained shortly, was distinctive in numerous ways. Of particular interest here is that it had a large and active library, the Ghetto Central Library (Ghettozentralbücherei). The library grew, in part, thanks to the frequency with which individuals entering Theresienstadt packed a treasured book instead of a little more food or clothing, an extra pair of shoes, or a blanket in their severely restricted luggage allotment. Most of these thoughtfully selected books ended up in the library. Through its very normalcy as an institution of leisure and learning, the library provided a means for prisoners to resist Nazi attempts to completely humiliate, dehumanize, and annihilate them. The library represented an organized system of life, all the more inspirational and strengthening as it thrived, providing links to the past as well as room to hope for a future within the much larger system of death. “People were literally starving for any kind of reading”: The Theresienstadt Ghetto Central Library, 1942–1945