Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe

19 reviews

chronicallyplotting's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book was… It’s hard to put into words how powerful this book and the characters are. Such an amazing story; full of heart ache and truth behind real people who literally survived hell. 
You know a book is amazing when you become invested and feel at times as if you are with the characters. I cried, I found myself gasping when things were revealed, I had to put my cheez-its down because i couldn’t eat while some parts where explained. This is a must read for everyone. History repeats itself, and education is a powerful weapon; the Nazis’ knew this and tried to destroy knowledge and truth. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, War, and Xenophobia

ems_rxlibrary's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This book was beautifully written and a haunting tale of rebellion even when your life is on the line. 
Dita and her mother were a couple of the prisoners in Block 31 in Auschwitz. This block in particular was set up to try and fool the world that these camps were not death camps, so the children had a barrack where they would go every day and play with the other children. Even though it was forbidden, some books were smuggled in and it became Dita’s job to protect and hide them. 
I was hooked from the foreword, honestly. The author told Dita before they parted, “Everyone knows about the largest library in the world. But I am going to write about the smallest library in the world and its librarian.” 
I could tell how much time and effort this author put into researching this novel. 
I did feel like the novel suffered a little from the shifting POVs. Sometimes it was from one paragraph to the next with no break to let you know that we were shifting to another POV, so it was easy to get lost at times, but it was still worth it. 
This book made my list of must read books about the holocaust! So good. If you are a lover of historical fiction and a lover of books, I can’t imagine that you won’t like this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Hate crime, Homophobia, Death, Genocide, Physical abuse, and Torture

Moderate: Death of parent and War

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual harassment

lauramcc7's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, War, Racism, Murder, Hate crime, Antisemitism, Excrement, Homophobia, Child death, Death of parent, Death, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, and Suicide

fenouil's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicide, Mental illness, Death, War, Gun violence, Excrement, Child death, Antisemitism, Homophobia, Torture, Sexual harassment, Racism, Physical abuse, and Death of parent

delz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

It must not be an easy task to write a respectful yet entertaining Holocaust story, but The Librarian of Auschwitz is one such novel. The framework of the story is based on a real Jewish girl, Dita Kraus who was 9 years old when the Nazis started their “final solution.” As a 15 year old, Dita became the Librarian of Auschwitz’s, very secret makeshift library that held 8 books. She was part of a secret school in the only camp that housed children, The Family Camp. It was a “front,” so that if a humanitarian group like the Red Cross were to do inspections the Nazis would show this camp where, they believed they were treating the inmates well. Many times survival was just a matter of chance, but on occasion if you were very clever you could workout a way to survive another day. While people lost faith in god and even their fellow man, someone would come along and surprise Dita in their humanity. This is a powerful story of strength and love, love of family and the power of friendship.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Child abuse, Confinement, Genocide, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Antisemitism, Body horror, Death, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Death of parent, Excrement, Hate crime, Murder, and War

gemstone's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Murder, Child death, Racism, Antisemitism, Death, Death of parent, Excrement, and Physical abuse

Moderate: War, Confinement, and Grief

Minor: Homophobia and Trafficking

chandle5's review against another edition

emotional inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Child death, Death, Child abuse, Physical abuse, and Emotional abuse

antoniarachael28's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Homophobia, Medical trauma, and Physical abuse

bookishalice's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

 I bought this when I finished The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s journey last year. I wanted to read more fictionalised accounts of survivors from Auschwitz. I wanted to understand more about their lived experiences. On that front, this book did not disappoint and like all war literature, was incredibly emotive. 

The story focuses on Dita, a young girl who is sent to the family camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I had NO idea there had been a family camp at Auschwitz and so this book provided insight into a part of history previously unknown to me. The book relays her experiences in the camp and introduces the stories of people she meets while imprisoned. 

Although I loved these other stories, I felt that the narrative jumped between stories in a disjointed way that left me feeling a little disorientated. These stories could have been structured as separate chapters, dispersed throughout the main story, which I think would have helped with that feeling. This might also have allowed for a more thorough retelling of people’s experiences. I would have loved to read more about Miriam, Renee, Professor Morganstern and Rudi. 

It might be because of the translation, but the narrative also felt quite stilted. I swear the tense or the person perspective changed a couple of times. I had to reread paragraphs or phrases and on occasion, this made it quite hard to get through. I will admit that at times, I was counting the pages left, which is a shame to admit. 

This falls in the 2 star category due to the narrative structure alone. I found it quite slow paced and hard to get through. But the subject matter really interested me, which pushes it up towards a 3 star! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Grief, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Torture, and Violence