Despite the inhumane conditions in the Nazi concentration camps, some camps had what were known as prisoner libraries. The camp commandants used these facilities to externally signal that they were “concerned” with the “welfare” of the prisoners. These small collections of books did, in fact, offer the prisoners rare moments of intellectual freedom and dignity. Reading became an act of resistance, hope and self-assertion. It helped some prisoners preserve their humanity and their knowledge in the midst of immeasurable suffering.
Reading to counteract cruelty?
Most existing documents and evidence relate to the libraries in Dachau and Buchenwald. Camp libraries were widespread in the early days of the National Socialist dictatorship from 1933, when they mostly served propaganda purposes. The concentration and extermination camps that were established later, such as Auschwitz, did not have libraries. Even in Buchenwald and Dachau, however, not everyone had the privilege of reading. For Jewish prisoners, it was prohibited from 1942 onward. Furthermore, books could not obscure the terrible conditions in the camps: a total of nearly 100,000 people perished in Buchenwald and Dachau.
The “showpiece of the camp”
… is how Karl Koch, the commandant of Buchenwald concentration camp at the time, described the prisoner library there. The library opened in the fall of 1937 with a collection of 3,000 books. The books were mainly purchased using money the SS had extorted from the prisoners. This is how Koch acquired sixty copies of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, for example.
Here [in the library] one could properly show a visitor how humanely the prisoners were treated; how one tended to the welfare of the imprisoned idlers, despite everything; how they were intellectually indulged, so to speak.
Karl Otto Koch, commandant of Buchenwald concentration camp from 1937 to 1941
Subversive literature
Some prisoners made voluntary donations to support the expansion of the camp library. Many inmates had books of their choice shipped from home and then donated them to the prisoner library. This is how some managed to smuggle subversive literature into the camp. Such literature included books by Erich Kästner, Robert Musil and a few other authors who were banned in the Third Reich. The library holdings grew to nearly 16,000 volumes by the time of the liberation
“I was a librarian in Buchenwald” is the title of a detailed account of the library’s development written after the liberation by Alfred Beffort, a prisoner from Luxembourg. While he was imprisoned, Beffort and a group of other inmates from all over Europe were responsible for expanding the library’s holdings. They particularly tried to acquire literature not written in German – even though this was actually forbidden. As Beffort remembered it, the library was a unique place place for reflection in the midst of the terror:
The long book room was bright and clean; […] a few attractive pictures on the walls and on the shelves, the green and red of the geraniums in the windows, and the thick cacti that grew along the bookshelves were a pleasant surprise.
Alfred Beffort, prisoner and librarian in Buchenwald concentration camp
Documentation of borrowed and donated books
The personal effects cards now held in the collection of the Arolsen Archives were mainly used by the SS to document the personal items that people had with them when they were arrested. But on the backs of some cards there are also notes about books that prisoners donated to the library – such as the one on this card for Paul Jagenburg, who was interned in Buchenwald from April 1941 as a “political” prisoner.
Eager reader
Paul Jagenburg was obviously one of the prisoners who was able to use the library often. His “reader’s card” in the collection of the Buchenwald Memorial has multiple entries. The librarians used these cards to note the shelf mark of the books that had been borrowed.
Meeting place for the resistance
The prisoner library in Dachau concentration camp also grew to hold at least 15,000 books by the end of the war. The library had already been set up in 1933. The prisoners in Dachau, like those in Buchenwald, managed to establish a rather ingenious system for smuggling in forbidden literature. Under the guidance of Kurt Schumacher, who became a leading social-democratic politician in the post-war period, the library was also a port of call for the social-democratic resistance in Dachau concentration camp.
What reading meant to the prisoners
I must not allow death – which is at our heels every day and every hour, indeed every minute – to dominate my thoughts. Otherwise I will fall victim to it. I want to and must make even more effort to force myself to read…
Quote from a prisoner of Dachau concentration camp, cited in: Rost, Nico (2001): Goethe in Dachau.
“Notes” about borrowing books
The Buchenwald Memorial has an especially interesting document relating to the former prisoner library: a notice which was pasted into every book. It lists assorted rules for handling borrowed books – such as the advice to never eat while reading. The last “note” clearly reflects the environment in which this book was borrowed: “You will be punished if you do not follow these instructions!”
The dissolution of the camp libraries
There are various accounts of what happened to the libraries after the liberation of the camps in April 1945 – from prisoners themselves as well as from the Allies, the SS and local residents. Released prisoners are said to have refused to return their books or “stormed” the library to take more books. Remnants from the Buchenwald library were apparently available for the taking in Weimar.
In any case, it was not possible to entirely preserve the prisoner libraries as historical documents. Nonetheless, the Buchenwald Memorial now has 120 books from the former library in its collection. Meanwhile, the Dachau Memorial and the Documentation Center of the Austrian Resistance have nearly 70 books from the Dachau library. Today the memorials offer their young visitors education on this aspect of the history of the concentration camps – not least as a way of illustrating the psychological importance of reading.
Sources
Beffort, Albert (1947): “Ich war Bibliothekar im KL Buchenwald.” In: Rappel 1/1947
Hofmann, Rosemarie (2014): “‘… es waren Bücher, die man brauchen konnte’: 50 Jahre Bibliothek der Gedenkstätte Buchenwald.” AKMB-news 1/2014, Volume 20
Kabelka, Werner (2008): Die Häftlingsbibliothek des Konzentrationslagers Dachau (1933 – 1945). Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller
Rost, Nico (2001): Goethe in Dachau: Ein Tagebuch. Berlin: List Taschenbuch Verlag
Schmit, Sandra (2023): “Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Post-War Literature from Luxembourg.” In: S. Pabst (ed.), Buchenwald: Zur europäischen Textgeschichte eines Konzentrationslagers (pp. 83-112). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter
Seela, Torsten (1992): Bücher und Bibliotheken in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern. Munich/London/New York/Paris: Verlag Saur