Intersection Column | Read Dangerously

by Roseanna M. White

When I learned about the now-infamous book burnings of 1933 in Germany, I was partly horrified and partly intrigued. Horrified, because books rank as nearly-sacred in my mind, and purposefully destroying them is enough to make me cry. But intrigued, because the events didn’t unfold like I’d expected them to. I thought, from my limited knowledge of Nazi Germany, that it was the government who had banned books at the time, that this was a down-from-on-high decision.

What I learned instead was that it was students who started it all. Students who wanted to send a message and take a stand and say, “These ideas aren’t welcome here.” So they gathered up all the books they found offensive—some because of the ideas presented in them, some because of the authors’ ethnicity—and made a statement. They burned the books. This, in turn, got the attention of the Nazi Party, who encouraged and eventually led the call not to just burn a few copies of offensive books, but to ban them from Germany entirely.

The free world was appalled. But when authors from other countries dared to speak out, they ended up on the banned list, too. They watched in horror as Nazi Germany spiraled from democracy to a dictatorship that would leave a perpetual stain on the world.

Never again has become the cry in answer to most Nazi policies. And yet . . . and yet we continue to repeat their mistakes in bits and pieces. We continue to judge people based on where they were born or the color of their skin or their ideas. We continue to say to those ideas, “Not here—we don’t want you here.” We continue to ban books, and then authors, and tell ourselves it’s to make the world better.

But does it?

In answer to the book burnings, German authors who had to flee for their lives ended up in Paris, where a group of them formed the Library of Burned Books. In this small library, they not only had copies of every book on the Nazi ban list, they had the leading research on “anti-Hitlerism.” And—my favorite bit to learn—they even took forbidden books, rebound them under innocuous titles, and sent them back into Germany in disguise.

Did every author like every book in that library? I highly doubt it. Many of the exiles were faithful Jews who had moral objections to some of the other titles. But still they banded together and made their own statement. They declared to the world that books were crucial to freedom. They insisted that if free thought, free press, free circulation were removed from a country, then all other freedoms would soon crumble too.

How could one not be inspired by these founders, by this library? I was fascinated, especially when I learned that when France surrendered to Germany in 1940, the first thing they did was give their occupiers the keys to this library in Paris. While one of my sources said what happened next is a mystery, another said the Nazis “kept the library under lock and key” for the duration of the war. Which fueled my imagination still more.

Why keep it instead of destroying it? And how would those guarding it have been changed by the books within it?

Because they would have been—we all are, by every book we read. That’s why they were banned. Because books might burn, but they do something even more dangerous—they ignite. They spark ideas to life in the minds of those who encounter them.

In The Collector of Burned Books, I wrote about two professors, two book lovers with secrets bound up with this Parisian library. But even more, I wrote a love letter to books—those things that change and shape our culture. Those conveyors of ideas. Those doors to other worlds. Through them, we can do the impossible—we can become someone else for a few hours.

I also issued an invitation: Read more. Read outside your comfort zone. Read to learn, read to grow.

Read dangerously.

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About the Author

Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award–winning author who has claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she's homeschooling, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books . . . to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. You can learn more about her and her stories at RoseannaMWhite.com.

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About the Book

Ever since the Nazi Party began burning books, German writers exiled for their opinions have been taking up residence in Paris where they opened a library. But when the German army takes possession of Paris, Corinne Bastien loses access to the library and all the secrets she's hidden there—secrets the Allies will need if they have any hope of liberating the city she calls home. Help may come in the unlikely form of German professor Christian Bauer, sent by the army to handle the relocation of France’s libraries.