Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz

József Debreczeni's memoir, "Cold Crematorium," was first published in Hungarian in 1950 but was never translated due to the rise of McCarthyism, Cold War hostilities, and antisemitism. It is a powerful indictment of Nazism and a haunting eyewitness account of the Holocaust that will be available in fifteen languages, taking its rightful place among the great works of Holocaust literature.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 18 January 2024
Publisher: Vintage Publishing

A lost classic of Holocaust literature, translated for the first time, emerges from the pen of journalist, poet, and survivor József Debreczeni. This literary gem, hailed as a Holocaust memoir worthy of Primo Levi, has been unearthed and is now available to a broader audience.

When József Debreczeni arrived at Auschwitz in 1944, his fate was sealed. If he had been sent to the left, his life expectancy would have been mere forty-five minutes. Fortunately, he was assigned to the right, which led to twelve agonizing months of incarceration and slave labor in a series of camps, culminating in the Cold Crematorium—the so-called hospital of the forced labor camp Dörnhau, where prisoners too weak to work were left to die.

Against all odds, Debreczeni managed to survive. In the aftermath of his ordeal, he committed his experiences to paper in Cold Crematorium, one of the harshest and most 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 that defy intellectual comprehension.

First published in Hungarian in 1950, this important eyewitness account was nearly lost to time due to the rise of McCarthyism, Cold War hostilities, and antisemitism. However, it is now being resurrected and will be available in fifteen languages, finally taking its rightful place among the great works of Holocaust literature, more than seventy years after its initial publication.

József Debreczeni's memoir is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of literature to shed light on the darkest chapters of history. It is a reminder that the horrors of the Holocaust must never be forgotten and that the lessons learned from this tragic period must guide us toward a more compassionate and just world.

Weight: 366g
Dimension: 144 x 225 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781787334649