Cold Crematorium
Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz
Published on 18. January 2024
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-78733-464-9 (ISBN)
Description
A lost classic of Holocaust literature translated for the first time - from journalist, poet and survivor Jozsef Debreczeni
'A literary diamond... A holocaust memoir worthy of Primo Levi' THE TIMES
'A masterpiece' NEW STATESMAN
When Jozsef 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 Doernhau, 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.
'A literary diamond... A holocaust memoir worthy of Primo Levi' THE TIMES
'A masterpiece' NEW STATESMAN
When Jozsef 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 Doernhau, 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.
Reviews / Votes
A literary diamond - sharp-edged and crystal clear. A haunting chronicle of rare, unsettling power... A holocaust memoir worthy of Primo Levi * The Times * Meticulous and intelligent translation... A masterpiece * New Statesman * In the timeliest possible way, it succeeds in restoring the Holocaust's reality... Debreczeni writes with a cinematic clarity, a determination to make detail triumph over mass dehumanisation * Telegraph * Astonishing... Debreczeni captures detail after harrowing detail * Guardian * As immediate a confrontation of the horrors of the camps as I've ever encountered. It's also a subtle if startling meditation on what it is to attempt to confront those horrors with words... Debreczeni has preserved a panoptic depiction of hell, at once personal, communal and atmospheric * New York Times * A timely reminder of man's inhumanity to man, especially for the young generation -- Jung Chang, author of WILD SWANS Whatever I say about this amazing book feels inadequate. Cold Crematorium is a brilliant book, but the word brilliant does not encompass it. It evades words. I have seldom read a book that creates empathy while dealing with the most dehumanized and dehumanizing experience. I wish everyone would read it, especially in this time of sheer inhumanity and baffling complicity -- Azar Nafisi, author of READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN An immensely powerful and deeply humane eyewitness account of the horror of the camps. Through vivid descriptions of what he saw and experienced there, Debreczeni confronts the reader with the hell that the Holocaust was; not as something general belonging to history, but as a particular, concrete and devastating reality -- Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of MY STRUGGLE Cold Crematorium offers a cleareyed view of the Nazi death machine with shades of gallows humor, tragedy and anthropological insight * New York Times * An indispensable work of literature and a historical document of unsurpassed importance. It should be required reading -- Jonathan Safran Foer, author of EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATEDMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 225 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
369 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78733-464-9 (9781787334649)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Jozsef Debreczeni (Author)
Jozsef Debreczeni was a Hungarian-language novelist, poet and journalist who spent most of his life in the former Yugoslavia. He was an editor of the Hungarian daily newspaper UEnnep in Budapest, from which he was dismissed due to anti-Jewish legislation. He was later a contributor to the Hungarian media, including the newspaper Naplo, in the Yugoslav region of Vojvodina, as well as leading Belgrade newspapers. He was awarded the Hid Prize, the highest distinction in Hungarian literature in the former Yugoslavia.
Paul Olchvary (Translator)
Paul Olchvary has translated many books for leading publishers, including Gyoergy Dragoman's The White King, Andras Forgach's No Live Files Remain, Adam Bodor's The Sinistra Zone, Vilmos Kondor's 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 Fuest Foundation. His shorter translations have appeared in the Paris Review, New York Times Magazine, Kenyon Review, Tablet, AGNI and Guernica. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Jozsef Debreczeni was a Hungarian-language novelist, poet and journalist who spent most of his life in the former Yugoslavia. He was an editor of the Hungarian daily newspaper UEnnep in Budapest, from which he was dismissed due to anti-Jewish legislation. He was later a contributor to the Hungarian media, including the newspaper Naplo, in the Yugoslav region of Vojvodina, as well as leading Belgrade newspapers. He was awarded the Hid Prize, the highest distinction in Hungarian literature in the former Yugoslavia.
Paul Olchvary (Translator)
Paul Olchvary has translated many books for leading publishers, including Gyoergy Dragoman's The White King, Andras Forgach's No Live Files Remain, Adam Bodor's The Sinistra Zone, Vilmos Kondor's 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 Fuest Foundation. His shorter translations have appeared in the Paris Review, New York Times Magazine, Kenyon Review, Tablet, AGNI and Guernica. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.