AMOR FATI zeven opstellen over Bergen-Belsen door Mr. Abel Jacob Herzberg – The Love of Fate – Seven Essays on Bergen-Belsen by camp survivor, Chairman of the Dutch Zionist Organization Avraham Yaakov Herzberg, on his experiences in the concentration camp, the impossible living conditions in the camps, and the story of his rescue. Published by Moussault’s, Amsterdam 1946 – First edition – A copy signed by the author. Dutch. Extremely rare.
Memories of Hell by the Dutch Jewish author and lawyer, Avraham Yaakov Herzberg (1893–1989). The diary, which recounts the horrors of Bergen-Belsen, was first published in 1946, shortly after Herzberg’s liberation from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he had been imprisoned during World War II. It opens with a quotation from Leviticus 26: “ואף גם זאת בהיותם בארץ אויביהם לא מאסתים ולא געלתים לכלותם…”. In his writings, Herzberg documents his experiences in the camp, the behavior of the Nazi staff, the role of the kapos (Jewish prisoners entrusted with supervising other prisoners), and shares the ethical and human challenges faced by the inmates, as well as the physical and mental struggle for survival. Herzberg describes the thoughts of the liberated prisoners when they saw the commander of Bergen-Belsen, Josef Kramer, on trial after the war, recalling how he had smiled widely while watching the emaciated, naked bodies he had murdered in the camp. He vividly recounts the sadistic enjoyment of the camp commanders as they witnessed the suffering of the prisoners, noting that the more the prisoners suffered, the greater the pleasure of the Nazi tormentors. He writes about the cruelty of the kapos in the camp and how the “reward” system worked, turning an ordinary man on his first day as a kapo into one of the most brutal of the brutal in order to please his Nazi commanders and earn an extra portion of food. According to him, the atmosphere of oppression in the camp was so intense that on days when a prisoner was neither beaten nor humiliated, he was in a constant state of waiting for the next beating or humiliation to come, knowing it was only a matter of time. The camp routinely held a gruesome “funeral” event – an orchestra was forced to accompany the burial of the murdered victims’ bodies. Over time, the camp’s prisoners became completely indifferent to this “ceremony, ” and more. Herzberg writes about the Germans without gloves, describing “mountains of hatred accumulated over generations, culminating in acts of hostility and terror by a group of criminals, ” and so on.
Abel Jacob Herzberg [1893-1989], a Jewish author and lawyer, was the Chairman of the Dutch Zionist Organization. Herzberg was exposed to Zionism from a young age and remained a committed supporter of Zionist ideology throughout his life. Following the Balfour Declaration issued by the British government during World War I, his Zionist activity intensified.
In the 1930s, Herzberg had already become a significant figure in the Jewish community of Amsterdam. He edited the newspaper of the Dutch Zionist Organization, De Joodse Wachter, and also served as the Chairman of the Dutch Zionist Organization. In March 1943, Herzberg and his family were arrested by the Nazis. They were taken to the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands. In September 1943, their children were smuggled to a nearby farm from Westerbork. On January 11, 1944, Herzberg was scheduled to depart for Mandatory Palestine, having even received special permits for the journey. However, on that very day, he and his wife were transferred by the Nazis to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Toward the end of the war, Herzberg recounts the drastic deterioration in the amount of food provided to the prisoners. He and his wife were put on the “lost train, ” which carried prisoners from Bergen-Belsen to Theresienstadt. The train never reached its final destination due to bombing by Allied forces and was liberated on April 23, 1945, by Russian soldiers who freed the survivors. After approximately two months, in the summer of 1945, the Herzbergs returned to Amsterdam with their three surviving children. His daughter emigrated to the newly established State of Israel, but the rest of the family decided to remain in the Netherlands.
The articles in this volume were originally written for the Dutch weekly “De Groene Amsterdammer” to mark the first anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation. Herzberg won several important literary awards, including the P.C. Hooftprijs in 1972 for his contribution to Dutch Holocaust literature.
Extremely rare. Only one copy appears in the WorldCat library catalog in a library in the Netherlands.
95 [1] pages. Good-very good condition.
