Holocaust survivor Edith (Dita) Kraus, who served as the librarian in the children’s block at Auschwitz, passed away on Saturday at the age of 96.
Kraus, who lit a torch during the 2014 Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, was the inspiration behind the book “The Librarian of Auschwitz”.
According to Yad Vashem, Edith (Dita) Kraus, née Polach, was born in 1929 in Prague, the only child of Dr. Hans Polach, a lawyer, and his wife Elizabeth. In March 1939, when the Germans invaded and annexed the Czech lands, her father was dismissed from his job.
In September of that year, after Germany invaded Poland, her parents sent Dita to a village for safety, but in 1940 she returned to Prague. Her parents arranged private lessons for her. At a sports field - the only public space where Jews were allowed - Dita met Fredy Hirsch for the first time. He was a charismatic teacher, educator, and sports instructor.
In November 1942, Dita and her parents were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Dita was placed in the girls’ barracks and worked in agriculture. After work, she would visit the building where her grandmother Katharina lived, who had been deported earlier that summer with Dita’s grandfather.
Despite the overcrowding, meager food, and forced labor, the ghetto hosted a vibrant educational and cultural life, with classes and lectures. Fredy Hirsch was among the educators, organizing sports activities and teaching values like mutual responsibility and Jewish pride. Dita took part in these programs and also sang in the ghetto’s production of the opera “Brundibár”. She studied drawing with Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, a gifted artist who encouraged girls to express their emotions through art - until she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered.
In December 1943, Dita and her parents were sent to Auschwitz, where numbers were tattooed on their arms. They were placed in the Czech family camp at Birkenau. Dita’s mother fell ill and was isolated. Six weeks later, Dita’s father died, and she had to break the news to her mother: “I reached the wall of the isolation barrack, the wall behind which my mother lay, and shouted the news to her through the wall.”
Dita became the librarian of the modest library in the children’s block. Fredy Hirsch ran the block and led a group of Zionist instructors who filled the children’s time with educational and creative activities, teaching geography, history, Judaism, and more. One of the instructors was Otto Kraus.
In March 1944, about half the children in the block were murdered, and Fredy Hirsch also perished. Dita remained in her role. In May, she and her mother were selected by Josef Mengele and sent to Hamburg, Germany, for forced labor. From there, they were transferred to the labor camps of Neugraben and Tiefstack. In March 1945, they were moved to Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated weeks later by the British army. Dita and her mother were relocated to a nearby displaced persons camp, also called Bergen-Belsen. On June 29, 1945, two months after liberation, Dita’s mother died from the hardships she had endured.
Dita returned to Prague, where she reunited with her aunt, her grandmother who had survived Theresienstadt, and Otto Kraus. Dita and Otto married, started a family, and in 1949 immigrated to Israel with their eldest son. Both worked as teachers for about 30 years at the Hadassim Youth Village.
Dita and Otto had three children and four grandchildren.