The Vulnerability Of The Strong In 'The Librarian Of Auschwitz'

One theme that is prevalent throughout the novel The Librarian of Auschwitz is the vulnerability of the strong. This idea is found throughout Dita’s story. Dita is ripped from her peaceful life and forced to change everything and conform to the ways of the camp. When she gets there she takes on a job as the librarian. Throughout her time at the camp, she is threatened many times, exposed to danger at a young age, and endures a lot of experiences that force her to act maturely. Dita is immediately put into an environment with a lot of elements that she can’t control. This forces her to be strong and adjust to a lot of things in life. Her strength acts as a shield but it also can hurt her. Being that she is aware of her strength, causes her to have her guard

She is quickly thrown for a loop when she is freed from the camp. Her mother is sick and not doing well. Dita usually encounters situations that she can deal with or control. When her mother is taking her last breath, Dita is the most vulnerable. “Dita runs to her mother’s bed, and the doctor is there closing his bag. Her mother has gone. All that remains is her tiny human form, the body of a little bird. Nothing else”(Iturbe 396). In this situation, all Dita can do is pray and have faith in the fact that her mom will be okay. Though she had before trained herself to be able to deal with such situations, at her first moment in the real and free world, she is proven wrong. After Dita learns that her mother took her last breaths, she is struck, confused, saddened, and angered. This ties into the idea of the vulnerability of the strong because they endure and often conquer so much that the situations in which they have no control, are the ones that catch them off guard the worst, throwing them for a loop and often causing them to feel lost and