Cinq Récits Des Enfants Du Ghetto avec 8 photographies de leur vie sous l'occupation allemande recueillis et traduits du polonais - "Five stories from the children of the ghetto with 8 photographs from their lives under the German occupation collected and translated from Polish" by Alfred Goldstein, Alliance Press Limited, London, [1945] - first edition.
A rare booklet about the suffering, hunger and hardships that the Jewish children went through in the ghetto under the Nazi rule from the children themselves as they told what they went through during the war years. The children tell how they were separated from their parents, about weeks and months of trying to escape in hiding places, weeks of hunger, disease, and freezing cold, they document the transports carried out by the Nazis, as well as the murders of the Jews on the streets of a city, all while telling their personal survival story.
Foreword by the French minister Maurice Dijean, as well as the member of parliament of Krakow Ignacy Schwarzbart, in which the background is briefly written about the children who tell their story here:
"The terrible stories of Jewish children presented in this booklet speak for themselves... these children should not be suspected of the exaggeration and inaccuracy that is common among the youth. The years of danger and life next to death matured these children before their time. They learned precision, and that A delay of one minute can also be the end of life for them... They rarely talk about the death of their parents. They say a sentence, then stop, think for a moment and resume the story. There is nothing more moving for the listener than this silence and this imprisonment of pain."
Inter alia apear the story of Menachem P. From Otwock (Poland) who arrived on his own in the town of Stoczek where he worked as a cowherd from morning until evening for a widow who employed him until she feared for her life from the terror of the Nazis and he was forced to leave and return to Otwock in the harsh winter of 1941. There he slept for a long time in a cowshed, and his throat swelled until he could not speak. On one occasion he met a German who asked him
"Are you Jewish?" The boy replied "yes". "He shouted that he was going to kill me on the spot, but I replied that I didn't care about life at all and that it didn't bother me at all if he shot me. Then he grinned and said: "To live is worse for you than to die, you are still young, there is enough time to kill you" , and continued to threaten him with his gun. He extends and recounts his hardships, how he got to the Polish side of Warsaw, and how he finally managed to cross the border to Budapest and be saved.
The boy Nathan K. was 8 years old when the war broke out. He describes how the Ukrainians participated in the massacres with the Nazis in Lviv, the restrictions on shopping allowed for Jews at certain hours of the day, and the daily beatings of Jews on the streets of a city. He describes the horrific deportation of 5,000 of the local Jews, and how he was torn from his parents who sent him alone to his grandfather's house. Nathan hid in the basement for six weeks and finally managed to escape the area using fake passports, and more.
The booklet is accompanied by harsh photographs of Jewish children in a state of horrific hunger and in severe physical condition in the ghettos.
There is no indication of the year of publication on the booklet. In the global library catalog "world cat" it appears that the booklet was published in 1945. Also in the introduction it is written: "Now the day is approaching when the freed nations will finally count their victims and their heroes... This booklet aims to remind the world of one of the most painful episodes of an era that is about to end...", which leads to the conclusion that the correct date is 1945.
47 p. 19 cm. Light stains on the cover. Rust spots near the pins. Good Condition.
