Forbidden Thought

The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe



In this design, I represent my favorite quote from the book on the back of the t-shirt. It basically addresses the fact that books make people think. It talks in depth about the power of knowledge and how it got people through world war II. One of the most eye opening things I've ever read.


This meme refers to the numerous occasions when Dita (the main character) had to run through and across all of the educational huts in order to hide the most forbidden of objects, books.


In similar reference to the last, this meme is addressing one of the opening scenes in the book where Dita has to hide the books in her shirt because of a surprise inspection from the SS guards.


"The Priest" is a brutal and mean SS officer in the book. He is horrid and shows no mercy. The prisoners nicknamed him "The Priest" because of his asinine and gruesome behavior.


This is just here to make you laugh.


Forbidden Thought; A Poem

Their hands touch us like we are objects of which they own

And with that they can control our physical being

But that is all they can do, and that scares them


They want to control our minds

The way we think and feel about ourselves

They want us to feel for ourselves the way that they feel for us

As inhuman, filthier than animals in a barn

Worthless.


In this attempt to chain our minds;

They take away the things that make us think

Connection

Love

Contact

Media

BOOKS

They take the books, of course, because the books educate us.

Education is knowledge.

Knowledge is power.

They take our power because they are weak.


That is why we are here

Being killed and raped and spit upon

Because they are scared of us

They are scared of what we could be

They are scared of what we already are


Knowledgeable.






Prior to writing this, I reread the prologue in attempt to get in touch with the feelings of the main character. I wanted to get the strongest grasp possible on how she felt and saw the world, before attempting to create something from her point of view. I came to the conclusion that in the end, the bottom line was that the majority of prisoners had a stronger grip on the reality of the situation than the guards themselves. The guards (and Nazis in general) had a plan to take any power that they possibly could, correct? Well, maybe that would have worked. Except for the fact that they forgot the part where you can't genuinely control someone's mind. All you can do is take away their resources, their means for thinking. (Which is exactly what happened when they figured this out.) But, even then, you can't truly stop the human mind from gaining knowledge. Knowledge is something the people always craved, Knowledge is power. Knowledge is what always kept the prisoners stronger than the guards, no matter what.