Cold crematorium

József Debreczeni

£16.99

Available on back-order

Here is an English language edition of a lost memoir by an Auschwitz survivor, offering a shocking and deeply moving perspective on life within the camps.

ISBN: 9781787334649 Category:

Description

A rediscovered classic of Holocaust literature translated for the first time – from journalist, poet and survivor József Debreczeni

‘A literary diamond… A holocaust memoir worthy of Primo Levi’ THE TIMES

‘It should be required reading’ JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, author Everything Is Illuminated

‘A timely reminder of man’s inhumanity to man’ JUNG CHANG, author of Wild Swans

When József Debreczeni 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 Dörnhau, where prisoners too weak to work were left to die.

Debreczeni beat the odds and survived. Very soon he committed his experiences to paper in Cold Crematorium, one of the harshest and powerful indictments of Nazism ever written. This haunting memoir, rendered in the precise and unsentimental prose of an accomplished journalist, compels the reader to imagine human beings in circumstances impossible to comprehend intellectually.

First published in Hungarian in 1950, it was never translated due to the rise of McCarthyism, Cold War hostilities and antisemitism. This important eyewitness account that was nearly lost to time will be available in fifteen languages, finally taking its rightful place among the great works of Holocaust literature more than seventy years after it was first published.

Additional information

Weight 0.377 kg
Dimensions 22.2 × 14.4 × 2.6 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages

160

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

940.5318092 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

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