their stocks – a hundred books in a small suitcase. No interference
with their activity. The same books are read many times over. Random
individuals take to lending books – former owners and employees of
book warehouses who happen to have a few books left. Often Christians
carry books round the buildings, exchanging them every day for a small
charge (1 zl. a month). Tenants of apartment buildings, youth groups,
clubs, collect books at home and exchange them with the residents. All
libraries are of course in private flats; the books lie in sideboards, on
shelves, often in small shops [1a] which sell completely different goods
(Majzelsa Street 5, Franciszkańska Street 14).
7. Attempts to obtain permission to run a legal library.
a. Appeals of former owners to Judenrat – documents!
b. Attempts to obtain permission for a children’s library – documents!
8. Organising the start of a children’s library. First book collection for
poor children – toys and books collected together with clothes collection.
Appeal: 1st appeal, 2nd appeal. Results: numbers, material, selection.
First travelling sets for boarding schools. Book corners.
9. After the closure of the ghetto. Rumours about legalisation of the book
trade. Less control. Setting out books in the street: Orla Street, Solna
Street, Leszno Street, Nowolipki Street. Taking over the premises at
Leszno Street 67, in the hope that it would shortly be possible to legalise
a library. The beginning of the organisation of a library.
10. Winter 1940. New restrictions: closure of all bookshops selling sacred
literature and shops selling dewocjonalia;⁴²⁵ news about arrests of clandestine
librarians (in Twarda Street?).
11. Spring 1941. Rumours that sacred literature bookshops have reopened –
roaming the streets in search of such shops: the first swallows in Nalewki
Street with the sign “Sprzedaż przedmiotów religijnych”⁴²⁶ (Cejlingold).
Beginning of activity of the children’s library (1 April), for the time being
as an internal library of CENTOS, available only to boarding schools
and children in kitchens; no charges. Fear of admitting children off the
streets (the little girl from Sosnowa Street). Further memos concerning
425 (Pol.) devotional objects.
426 (Pol.) “Sale of religious objects”, in Latin script in the original.
