When the rioters came to the Spellow library, they used the non-fiction section as a small wood.
Deborah Moore, then director of the library, arrived the next morning and discovered that the shelves and sofas recently bought as part of a renovation project had been stacked to build a stake on the ground floor. The books that had survived the riot, part of A wave of anti-immigrant and racist disorders Who broke out through Great Britain in August last year, were yellowed by smoke, their pages were rolled up because of the heat.
The anger came first, she said, then the sadness, then the determination to replace the hundreds of books that had burned, even though the smell of their destruction filled the nostrils. The feeling was as follows: “Watch us come back from this situation, because we will not be beaten. »»
The library is located in Walton, a disadvantaged district of the city of Liverpool, in the northwest of England. A year and a half before the fire, it was renovatedThe transforming into a community center offering training workshops for the unemployed, groups of parents and young children and a contact center for local council. Then, in August, she became one of the most publicized victims of Great Britain. The largest epidemic of public disorders For more than a decade.
In the hours following an attacker armed with a knife Killed three young girls in Southport, a coastal city located about 20 miles from Liverpool, disinformation claiming that he was a newly arrived Muslim immigrant was broadcast by Far -right accounts on social networks. In fact, he was born in Great Britain, in a Rwandan Christian family. But anti-migrant violence broke out in more than a dozen places in England and Northern Ireland, causing more than 400 arrests.
The killer, Axel Rudakubana, was life sentence Last week. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described his actions as An example of a new type of terrorismImplying solitary obsessed with violence rather than motivated by a single ideology.
Liverpool was among the first places to burst in disorder. The rioters went so far as to try to prevent the firefighters from entering the library, local police said. said in a statement at the time.
Alex McCormick, a 27 -year -old woman from a neighboring suburbs, saw the images of broken windows and blackened pages at the library and immediately decided to launch a fundraising online to help replace books.
“We can’t burn books, we can’t do that,” she said. “We are not like that, but for the rest of the world, this is now what we look like.”
Its objective was 500 pounds, or about $ 610, but soon thousands of people began to flow, part of the money from famous donors. Ms. McCormick, who married that month, found herself distracted from her marriage preparations by monitoring young and large acts of generosity. Young people have mobilized their own libraries to send books; Others donated books from their deceased relatives; While members of the community gave everything they could. In three weeks, Gofundme had collected £ 250,000.
“This is an unimaginable sum for a library,” she said. Upon his return from his honeymoon, a member of the municipal council called him to tell her that Queen Camilla had donated books: the collection included Anne Frank’s newspaper, “Love in the time of cholera” And “the tiger who came to take tea”. A British classic for children by a writer and illustrator who fled Nazi Germany when she was small.
Ms. McCormick, member of another local library and whose daughter bears the name of a favorite literary character, said that she hoped that this effusion would give people a more real image of her city and British public opinion .
“In the end, 11,500 people gave money to fundraising and hundreds of other people donated physical books,” said McCormick. “There were not 11,500 people on Country Road who caused trouble and burned the library.”
The library reopened its doors in mid-December, four months after its destruction. The Liverpool municipal council funded reconstruction, at a cost of £ 200,000. A council spokesperson said the money collected by Ms. McCormick would be used for community programs.
In the weeks following the violence, the district was invaded by a feeling of discomfort, the inhabitants said. People of color said they were afraid. A youth animator who helps to organize coaching sessions for young people said that he had met some who had participated in the riots and that he had found them in the grip with shame and regret. This has aggravated the despair that many young people from Walton already felt.
Everyone felt abandoned, said Sarah Atherton, who grew up in the neighborhood and whose children attend the library. She said that some parts of the region have long seemed forgotten.
The police Order nine people For disorders that occurred on County Road, and a man was sentenced to 22 months in prison for participation in violence and throw a glass bottle among the police.
By a cold December night, County Road was again crowded, with dozens of residents carrying lanterns during a parade for reopening. An ark of balloons above the entrance to the Spellow library brought color to a street that had lost many small businesses and amenities during a decade of austerity measures under the conservative government of the 2010s.
A few days later, the first Saturday since it was reopening, the library was in excitement. A woman entered and exclaimed happily: “You are open! »»
IAKOB DROZDOVA, 11, was delighted that his old library card could consult the new books. He signed up for a drawing class while his mother-in-law, Sofia Drozdova, waited on the new soft chairs while reading. For Ms. Drozdova, who said he fled Russia with his wife and family because of anti-gay lawsThe library had become a refuge. The violence of August, she said, were an exception in a district otherwise.
“I don’t even have the words in my mother tongue,” said Drozdova, who was a librarian in Russia, about the fire.
During his first visit, Fungai Chirombe headed directly to his favorite section: self-assistance and well-being. During the months following her departure from Zimbabwe to find her mother, she consulted more than 50 pounds. The library is at the center of his new house, most of them welcomed her, even if someone launched racist insults to his mother a week before, she said.
“I’m just happy to heal,” she said, holding a pile of new books in her arms. “There are so many equipment.”
The children gathered around a DIY table and filled cellophane horn with chocolate powder and marshmallows to make reindeer with wide eyes. In the children’s reading corner, a troop in the neighborhood set up a pantomime of “Pinocchio”, while in another corner, a teenager praised in front of a computer screen, trying to understand her duties of mathematics.
“It’s noisy,” said June Serridge, who was looking for his family tree. “But it’s nice to be back.”
