Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz

(Hardback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

The first English language edition of a lost memoir by an Auschwitz survivor, offering a shocking and deeply moving perspective on life within the camps The first English language edition of a lost memoir by an Auschwitz survivor, offering a shocking and deeply moving perspective on life within the camps J zsef Debreczeni, a prolific Hungarian-language journalist and poet, arrived in Auschwitz in 1944; had he been selected to go 'left', his life expectancy would have been approximately forty-five minutes. One of the 'lucky' ones, he was sent to the 'right', which led to twelve horrifying months of incarceration and slave labour in a series of camps, ending in the 'Cold Crematorium' - the so-called hospital of the forced labour camp D rnhau, where prisoners too weak to work awaited execution. But as Soviet and Allied troops closed in on the camps, local Nazi commanders - anxious about the possible consequences of outright murder - decided to leave the remaining prisoners to die. Debreczeni survived the liberation of D rnhau and immediately recorded his experiences in Cold Crematorium, one of the harshest, most merciless indictments of Nazism ever written. This haunting memoir, rendered in the precise and unsentimental prose of an accomplished journalist, is an eyewitness account of incomparable literary quality. It was published in the Hungarian language in 1950, but it was never translated, due to Cold War hostilities and rising antisemitism. More than 70 years later, this masterpiece that was nearly lost to time is now being published in 15 different languages for the first time, and will finally take its rightful place among the greatest works of Holocaust literature.

Author Bio

J zsef Debreczeni was a Hungarian-language novelist, poet and journalist who spent most of his life in Yugoslavia. He was an editor of the Hungarian daily Napl and of Unnep in Budapest, from which he was dismissed due to anti-Jewish legislation. On May 1, 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz after three years as a forced laborer. He was later a contributor to the Hungarian media in the Yugoslav region of Vojvodina, as well as leading Belgrade newspapers. He was awarded the Hi d Prize, the highest distinction in Hungarian literature in the former Yugoslavia. Paul Olchvary has translated more than twenty books, including Gy rgy Dragoman's The White King, No Live Files Remain, Budapest Noir and Karoly Pap's Azarel. He has received translation awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America and Hungary's Milan F st Foundation. His shorter translations have appeared in The Paris Review, The Hungarian Quarterly and turnrow.