Treblinka by Chil Rajchman

Treblinka by Chil Rajchman

Chil Rajchman, a Polish Jew, was arrested with his younger sister in 1942 and sent to Treblinka, a death camp where more than 750,000 were murdered before it was abandoned by German soldiers. His sister was sent to the gas chambers, but Rajchman escaped execution, working for ten months under incessant threats and beatings as a barber, a clothes-sorter, a corpse-carrier, a puller of teeth from those same bodies. In August 1943, there was an uprising at the camp, and Rajchman was among the handful of men who managed to escape. In 1945, he set down this account, a plain, unembellished and exact record of the raw horror he endured every day. This unique testimony, which has remained in the sole possession of his family ever since, has never before been published in English. For its description of unspeakably cruelty, Treblinka is a memoir that will not be superseded. In addition to Rajchman's account, this volume will include the complete text of Vasily Grossman's 'The Hell of Treblinka', one of the first descriptions of a Nazi extermination camp; a powerful and harrowing piece of journalism written only weeks after the camp was dissolved. Introduction by Samuel Moyn, Professor of History at Columbia University and author of A Holocaust Controversy: The Treblinka Affair in Postwar France.

'In its poignant simplicity, Rajchman's account opens new horizons in our perception of evil.. An important, heart-rending contribution to our the search for truth' Elie Wiesel. 'Rajchman's searing story ... has a powerful authenticity and should not be forgotten. A Holocaust testament of heart-rending immediacy' Kirkus Reviews. 'An incomparable testimony of the Nazi extermination machine ... written with extraordinary narrative power' Natalie Levisalles, Liberation. 'His 96-page memoir, translated from the original Yiddish, has a powerful immediacy' Martin Gilbert, The Times. 'Rajchman writes vigorously ... this is an important book that deserves a prominent place in Holocaust literature' Victor Sebestyen, The Sunday Times. 'Written in the present tense it has a vivid immediacy and starkness about it that no historical book is able to achieve' Christopher Silvester, Sunday Express. 'His unadorned prose takes us to a place unlike any other in human history, at the extreme limits of human endurance and understanding' David Cesarani, New Statesman. 'As tense as any thriller ... the writer's duty is to tell the truth; the reader's duty is to learn from it' James Carson, Skinny.

Chil Rajchman was born in Lodz in Poland, and was an active member of his Jewish community. After the Treblinka trials he emigrated to Uruguay, where he died in 2004. Solon Beinfeld taught Modern European and Jewish History at Washington University in St. Louis and he has written and consulted extensively on the Holocaust. He is currently editing a new Yiddish-English dictionary.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781906694203
ISBN 10	1906694206
Title	Treblinka
Author	Chil Rajchman
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Quercus Publishing
Year published	2011-01-06
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable