Cold Crematorium: Reporting From the Land of Auschwitz, Jozsef Debreczeni, author;
Jonathan Freedland, author; Paul Olchvary, translator, Laurence Dobiesz, narrator.
The translation of this newly discovered manuscript has shed more light on the Holocaust than many other books that came before it. It describes, in graphic detail, the total experience from beginning to end, of the author’s journey through the gates of Hell where he witnessed and experienced the horror, a horror that is more horrifying because it is the stuff of nightmares, and yet it is true; it really happened. The naysayers are fools. The proof is incontrovertible.
The deprivation, the barbarism, the madness, the depravity and the unbelievable attempt to destroy an entire people was real, though it was denied then, and it is now by anti-Semites who would do it again, and by those who simply would or could not believe that such atrocious and inhuman behavior was possible in any part of the realm of reality.
Who in their right mind could expect such a total madness to afflict so much of the world? Who, and yet, we are witnessing a resurgence of the same madness today, as the country of the Jews is maligned by the very same people who tried to annihilate them only a few months ago. The West and America is blinded by their own innate biases and seems to be supporting the terrorists, rather than Israel, the victim and the only Democracy in the Middle East. The West and America is thwarting their effort to survive by wiping out its enemy. The enemy is guilty of genocide, but the accusation, instead, is being thrown back at the victim by those who find it expedient to support the very terrorists that committed the genocide against Israel.
What has the world learned from the Holocaust and the hatred that was directed toward Jews, the LGBTQ+ community, the disabled, the mentally ill, people of color, and anyone not deemed Aryan enough? Apparently, nothing; since even those who are targeted by the Pro-Palestinian Muslim movement seem to be marching to defend their genocidal behavior. They mutilated women, burned babies alive, invaded a country they were not at war with, and yet, they are now being cheered on in public and Israel, the victim of their atrocities, is being maligned. Are we to witness another Holocaust because of our willful blindness and need to support a particular political party, though it is not to our advantage? Is this the same kind of ignorance and greed that surfaced and was encouraged in Germany by the fascists?
During the Holocaust, this author bore witness to the most brutal, demeaning behavior toward human beings who were starved to death, beaten to death, worked to death, experimented upon, broken and treated like vermin, because he was one of them. The remorse that people felt at war’s end, when the magnitude of the depravity became known, seems to have largely disappeared. Although families were indiscriminately murdered and wiped out, although they were brutally tortured, removed from society and shamed. those who allowed it seem to have clones in today’s society. The Holocaust engaged and empowered the lowest dregs of society. Is that who is marching now to malign the only democratic country in the Middle East? Must we witness the horrors that defy imagination again, in order to make us want to prevent them from happening again? Have we grown so hardened and inured to barbarism, that today we don’t even blink an eye to fight against it, but instead gather with the enemy for political and personal agendas and greed!
We are witnessing the supporters of terrorists being cheered as they march through our streets, as they demand the death of Israel and the Jews. The murder of innocents in their beds as they slept, as they hid in their safe rooms, the torture and mutilation of those running away after attending a concert for peace, the babies who were cooked in ovens, the people who were burnt alive, so hated that even their animals were enemies and were slaughtered, and the despicable taking of hostages is seemingly not even a blip on anyone in the West’s radar any longer. These murderers filmed the atrocities they committed, bragged about it, posted it on social media and yet were only condemned at first, now they are allowed to demand more from their victims, humanitarian aid, etc., a cease fire, as their crimes are being erased from consciousness by our media and politicians.
Debreczeni describes his capture from day one until he is liberated. His survival was almost happenstance, since he suffered from all of the acts of appalling cruelty as civilization collapsed during the terrible Holocaust. He proves that although it was disbelieved by many, the Jews were treated as less than human, like animals, or worse, and then they became animals to some degree, as they descended into utter despair. He describes so many atrocities, back breaking labor, the deliberate planning of deadly disease into the concentration camps in order to eliminate the prisoners, but it also eliminated the guards. The law of unintended consequences surely played out, when the war was suddenly over, and some of the prisoners who escaped into the community carried the deadly typhus with them.
One might ask how such madness afflicted so many and caused so much undeserved harm to so many, the deaths of so many millions in the war and in the death camps, but the answer evades us, because even today, as we witness the resurgence of the same hate, spreading around the world, we are at a loss to explain or stop it. I ask myself how it is possible to hate a people that has brought so much to society in medicine, technology, science and culture, but it defies the imagination as we witness, once again, the madness of protest marches in the street, the protesters who support the barbaric behavior of the people who started the latest confrontation, the Palestinians of Gaza, and many of the marchers are blind to the fact that they are on the kill list too, of the same people they are supporting!
Jews and the LGBTQ community and people of color are rallying around their own enemies to destroy the only democracy in the Middle East and to malign the efforts of Israel’s leaders and the Jews to save themselves and their country. This book, is therefore very pertinent at this time. As the author describes every moment of his captivity with complete detail, the brutality of it will defy the imagination, cause one’s psyche to reject the idea that it really happened, but it did, because the people in charge were from the lowest forms of unsuccessful life. The capos, also prisoners, the other slave labor, were as brutal as the Nazis, because their lives depended on that brutality. The daily torment, the lack of hygiene with overflowing latrines, the straw beds on wooden boards shared by too many, the lice, the filth, the lack of food, the hard labor, the cruelty, the beatings, the murders were all documented by this man who was distinctly able to do it, since he was a writer and a memoirist. The Germans destroyed their minds, their psyches and the identities of their victims, and they did it systematically and coldly with total malicious intent. How can Jews today witness the same hatred and barbaric behavior and yet stay silent or remain faithful to the political party that is supporting such horrors and demanding unreal concessions from the victims, while it supports wars in other locals that are far more brutal and unjust?
Each time I read a book about the Holocaust, I think I will be familiar with all of the tragic events, all of the inhumane treatment so widely ignored and denied, but no, I always learn of more. The lie that the people were unaware of the atrocities being committed has been laid bare and disproved. The truth about hate is being covered up, but it must be uncovered so justice prevails.