in a foreign language talking about an alien environment,” Mrs B. explains. “Consequently, such books could not serve as their friends. But they would have, if they had been written in Yiddish and had talked about types of people they were familiar with from their milieu.”
Consequently, a key goal of Mrs B.’s work at the library was to instil a love for Yiddish books in Jewish children, to make them life-long book lovers. She asks each child if he or she knows Yiddish and can read in Yiddish. If it turns out that the child does not know Yiddish, she encourages them to learn it. If the child knows some Yiddish but only poorly, she helps him or her by recommending an easy book as a start. [Later on she recommends] more and more difficult and interesting ones. The thirst for books in those children is insatiable. And the results of her activity in this field are remarkable.
Mrs B. is burning with [. . .] and she keeps making improvements. Now people can read periodicals, scholarly books, and poetry in the library during the book exchange hours. She has recently organised “hours of reading aloud.” They take place once a week. On such days the book exchange lasts an hour less and the children who want to can stay and look for an interesting book to be read aloud. Mrs B.’s influence often reaches subscribers’ homes. For some children come and ask for a “thick, interesting” book for Saturday, for on Friday evening the whole family gathers at the table and the father reads aloud. Such statements by the children fill Mrs B. with joyful satisfaction. “I work with devotion. [68] My work is an outlet for my energy and has a beneficial influence on my psyche,” says Mrs B. “I believe it is utilitarian and has a purpose not only with regard to the present, but also to the future. And one further telltale thing. At the beginning of the war I was working in the clothing section in a much better locale and moral atmosphere. I still had my reserve of energy from before the war. Nonetheless, I often fell ill. And today, even though I work more intensively under much worse housing conditions (the room is unheated or poorly heated) and my diet has deteriorated, I am healthy. [. . .] mood has a [beneficial?] influence on me, boosting my energy and [. . .] immunity.”
The library set up by Mrs B. remains the only community reading room for children.
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