Cold Crematorium: Reporting From the Land of Auschwitz

Cold Crematorium: Reporting From the Land of Auschwitz

by Debreczeni, József, Freedlalnd, Jonathan

Format

Hardcover $9.49
Condition Bargain Brand-new publisher overstock that may have a remainder mark and minor wear from handling. Bargain
$9.49

List price: $28.00 List Price This is the manufacturer's recommended retail price. Please note older versions of books may not reflect the most current list price due to price adjustments made on newer printings. We strive to keep the website's list price updated to match the current MSRP, based on information from publishers.

About

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP TEN BOOK OF 2024

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 tot he right, which led to twelve horrifying months of slave labor in a series of camps, ending in the "cold crematorium"—the so-called hospital of the camp Dörnhau, where prisoners too weak to work awaited execution. But as Soviet and Allied troops closed in, local Nazi commanders—anxious about the possible consequences of outright murder—decided to leave the remaining prisoners to die in droves rather than send them directly to the gas chambers.

Debreczeni recorded his experiences in Cold Crematorium, described by a commentator as "one of the harshest, most merciless indictments of the Nazism ever written." This haunting memoir, rendered in the precise and unsentimental style of an accomplished journalist, is an eyewitness account of incomparable literary quality. The subject matter is intrinsically tragic, yet the author's evocative prose, sometimes using irony, sarcasm, and acerbic humor, compels the reader to imagine human beings in circumstances impossible to comprehend intellectually.

First published in Hungarian in 1950, it was never translated into a world language due to McCarthyism, Cold War hostilities, and antisemitism. More than seventy years later, this masterpiece that was nearly lost to time will be available in fifteen languages, finally taking its rightful place among the greatest worlds of Holocaust literature.
Additional Info