Auschwitz Survivor and Secret Librarian, Dita Kraus Dies At 96
The world has lost a remarkable witness to history with the passing of Dita Kraus at the age of 96. Born in Prague in 1929, she discovered her Jewish heritage only at age nine. This identity led to her deportation, first to the Theresienstadt ghetto and then, in December 1943, to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
There, at just fourteen, Dita performed a quiet, defiant act of courage. In the so-called “family camp,” she became the secret librarian of Block 31, a children’s barracks. Guarding a small, precious collection of forbidden books—from a geometry text to a tattered Russian novel—she risked death to provide imprisoned children with fleeting moments of learning and escape. Her father perished in Auschwitz; her mother was sent to forced labor. Dita endured transports to Hamburg and the horrors of Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated.
After the war, she married fellow survivor Otto Kraus, moving with him to Israel in 1949. For three decades, they taught at the Hadassim Youth Village, dedicating their lives to educating the young. Dita’s powerful testimony, preserved in Holocaust archives, ensures the world remembers not only the depths of human cruelty but also the resilience of the human spirit, symbolized by a teenage girl who protected books in a place designed to destroy all hope.
