An Underground Library in the 1940s

Please do not say this is old hat and 80 years ago. That’s true. But to me during this very dire time, any glimmer of hope or shining example of generosity is a blessing. A war continues in Ukraine; the world faces a recession; and we in Sri Lanka are in crisis as never before. The worst is that our situation has been caused by a government led by the Rajapaksas with a sycophantic Cabinet and an apparently incompetent as Governor of the Central Bank. We have never had it so bad, even during WWII when Ceylon was involved as headquarters of the South East Asia Command; or during our 29 years of civil war. People in the North suffered even more than us now and armed forces personnel, especially soldiers, made the ultimate sacrifice with their lives. But though there were countries/persons who caused the war – Nazi Germany and Prabhakaran in our case, never did rulers lead us to such travails.

So here is my edited story from an article sent me from History Today June 2022 by Emily Putzke.

Surreptitious library

In 1939 at the very start of WW II the Jews were segregated in Poland and other countries. Laws were immediately promulgated circumscribing their lives. Among them were laws limiting access to books. Lending libraries were closed in the Jewish quarter and they were forbidden using public libraries. A ghetto was established in Warsaw in the autumn of 1940, enclosing half a million Jews to a small section of the city, surrounding it with a ten foot brick wall. Daily meagre rations were given them grudgingly. As many as 83,000 died from starvation in less than two years and hundreds of thousands were deported to Treblinka extermination camp during that summer.

Basia Berman was one of the few Jews to be employed by the Warsaw Public Library before the war. Even before segregation of Jews in the ghetto had begun, she was a one-woman-walking librarian with her ‘wandering library’ in her valise, delivery books to the homeless. When the Warsaw Ghetto was sealed in November 1940, a part of the Warsaw Public Library came within its boundaries. Berman managed to get permission to use this part of the building within the Ghetto and named it CENTOS, a children’s welfare organisation but covertly establishing an underground children’s library within. She got donations of banned books from closed libraries and made them available in spite of reading being banned to inmates of the ghetto and more so Yiddish and Polish books. The library was under a room deceptively decorated with pictures and cut-outs. Discussions and Yiddish book reading sessions were held to keep alive their Jewish traditions and culture. The kids were also taught Hebrew.

‘The thirst for knowledge that the children showed in those terrible times was truly wondrous’, Berman commented in her memoir, City Within a City (2012). ‘The book became a vital need, almost like bread.’ A survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto recalled how a boy continued immersed in the book he was reading while his home was destroyed and entire family bundled in for deportation to a camp. “But the 12-year boy was lost and swept in his newly discovered worlds, not hearing or seeing what was happening around him.”

Berman and her husband Adolf escaped from the ghetto in September 1942 and sought a safe haven in the ‘Aryan side’ of Warsaw and became leaders of the Jewish underground movement. As writer Emily Putzke wrote, “Berman helped to lead the Jewish community in a subtle, yet defiant form of resistance. Books were a source of life and sustenance for the human spirit, a way to preserve one’s humanity amid a dehumanising reality.”

Those who make special efforts to do more

I am personally rather tired of prophets of doom who keep harping on the troubles still to beset us. Of course we need to know the truth; most certainly we want to have stark realities made known, but please, not all the time. Scatter us some glimmers of hope, Prime Minister, and Dr Harsha de S too even if you have to seek diligently for them like the proverbial needle in a haystack. We hardly listen to other VVIPs and mea culpas, and thankful smiley cawing of crows; boasts of jogging lanes being built on ancient wewa bunds; and bon homie from one side of the mustachio-ed mouth and vituperation of the evilest sort from the other are ended now, kaput, thanks mostly to the Aragalaya youth who also taught the wonder of non-racial, non-religious togetherness.

We, the discerning public, are even more sick and tired of shouting, screaming, grousing in long queues of our people. Of course this situ is deplorable and the government needs to take positive, alleviating steps and not merely wait for donated or loaned-at-high-interest-rate ‘gifts’ from overseas. Lankans in the southern regions of the island are adept at grousing and vituperating and seem to enjoy the time spent in queues. Or to be charitable, stay in queues with no alternative. But it now looks as if when petrol stations are closed too, the queues of standing people continues. Maybe they wait in anticipation of being featured in a TV news clip!

I asked a young woman from Jaffna how it is over there. No queues. They know how to manage with what they have, since they have had to go through worse times. “Most houses have a compound to make an open fireplace and plenty of tinder is available” They do not waste time but are ever industrious in their cultivation mostly. So the spectre of shortage of food and soaring prices are also met to a certain extent.

Another breed, detestable as self interested politicians are, are the hoarders. Rice is not sold anywhere in her hamlet a weekly help said. Hoarded to sell when prices escalate.

Going out of their way to help

In this gloomy doom that shrouds us came sharp rays of light to gladden my heart. I heard tales of how people are going out that extra step or two to help others. We have communities self helping; villagers assisting each other. During the height of the civil war, I remember a young man from just south of Vavuniya saying that no racial bias was with them. Tamil farmers helped Sinhala and Muslim paddy workers to harvest their fields and they in turn helped the others.

We now help more the underprivileged. The three wheeler charioteers who help me say they spend at least two to three hours getting petrol pumped into their vehicles to run on hires the next day. So it’s paying double or treble their fare in appreciation.

I heard paediatrician Dr Priyani Pethiyagoda giving sensible, practical advice to parents to include as much nutrition as possible in a child’s meals; for example a handful of dried sprats in the vegetable curry. To me, the greater significance of what she said was how she said it. She spoke one to one as a mother and house manager, with conviction and obvious sincerity.

I have heard how difficult it was for the staff of Lady Ridgeway Hospital when Covid 19 attacked children. The doctors and nurses worked around the clock, giving of themselves with no thought of fatigue or danger. I personally know of last minute excuses offered by a paediatrician excusing herself from a lunch due to a child in her ward being direly ill and needing her attention. “I cannot leave the kid to others to manage.” It was a laborious process of dressing and then returning home late – six days of the week – shedding all that protective covering and clothes outside the home, bathing, and then coming together with husband and kids.

Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children is one among many where staff working in them have contributed money to better equip the hospital. For example at Lady Ridgeway, the staff have contributed to procure expensive medical equipment such as oxygen regulators, ventilators, infusion pumps and much more, Also trolleys, folding beds, and of course food and beverage items. We need to remember that often mothers or guardians caring for their children in the wards are also given food, clothes, money too by staff members. It is typical of Sri Lankans that poor though they be, they help each other. This the person I know at Lady Ridgeway told me that patients’ elders help poorer persons whose children are warded.

VIP doctors also procure donations from organisations; one instance, the Colombo Branch of the OGA of Girls High School, Kandy, donated a very expensive piece of equipment to Lady Ridgeway Hospital after one of their very successful fund raisers, which now raise millions.

There is so much good in the people of Sri Lanka. It lightens the mind and makes happy in the heart to hear of people helping each other. In the instance I write about, these medical specialists: specialist paediatricians , house officers, nursing staff, all give of their expertise, time and effort tirelessly and then help more by giving some of their hard earned money to help the less able.

With such, Sri Lanka has to overcome all evil political bloodsuckers and heal herself to become whole, beautiful and peaceful again.