The horrors inside the Nazi death camp

By: Julian Evans / The Telegraph
Translation: Telegrafi.com

Do people ever learn from the past? When all the witnesses are dead or gone, it can seem like an almost surreal dream. Even the greatest horror of the last century is not immune to this phenomenon. In that respect, it is good that Cold crematorium by József Debreczen – published in Hungarian in 1950 – is now published in English: in due time it succeeds in recalling the reality of the Holocaust.

Hungarian-speaking and Jewish, Debrecen was deported from Serbia to "the land of Auschwitz" (as he puts it in the book's subtitle) in May 1944. He didn't stay long in the main camp and spent the next 14 months in Gros' three sub-camps. -Rosen - in Ojle, Fyrstenstein and Dyrnhau, where he finally ended up in the "cold crematorium" of the title, in the hospital where prisoners who were too weak to work awaited execution.

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As a journalist and poet, his testimony is unusual. Primo Levi noticed that in the writings of the survivors, words such as "indescribable" or "inexpressible" are often used: language was not created for the peaceful and wild world. But in Paul Olchváry's literal translation, Debreczeni writes with cinematic clarity: with a kind of self-resistance, with a determination to show the details of triumph over mass dehumanization.

Identity comes first. "How do I prove it's me?" - he asks after his clothes and documents are confiscated. But he keeps himself alive by knowing others and through relationships with them: Béla Maurer – lawyer and editor from Novi Sad; Bálint – another journalist from Bratislava; Farkas – a doctor from Budapest who will help him get rid of typhus; Sanyi Róth – notorious thief and roommate with whom she forms a friendship by listening to his stories of robberies.

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Life in the camp is explained in detail: starvation, dysentery, pneumonia, starvation edema, the tramp market hastening "our immediate deterioration ... the non-smokers are often able to exchange, for themselves, the value of five's bread or six lives". Body lice are deadly torture, “camps of glistening palm-sized larvae taking shape in our rags and blankets. Like the hazy images of a nightmare, these silver flecks begin to stir, then squirm, and then horribly twist and disintegrate. Our half-sleeping nights end like that. Those hours allotted to rest now pass with curses and excruciating scratches."

Later, the lice become the main carriers of typhus, which is deliberately introduced into the Dyrnhau camp by the Germans who brought in infected prisoners - to eliminate the camp's population, without the charge of mass killing of the last months of the war.

In Debreczen's story, the lice as a metaphor mean the Nazis, which he keeps in the background. The daily world of the prisoners is that of the capos, the slightly superior prisoners who, for the extra rations, terrorized those who were Häftlinge (prisoners). One day, the appearance of a rare SS officer becomes increasingly shocking. "Who is the best worker?" - he asks. "46514" - the capo answers. A sun-kissed, ex-woodsman from the Carpathians steps out to get attention. The SS man “reaches into the holster, pulls out his revolver and presses the barrel to 46514's cheek. The shot rings out. The man, who was standing as straight as a flagpole, staggers before falling face down into the pit … 'this little demonstration', he says, 'an example of how even the best Jew must die'” .

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As the Nazis and capos flee and Soviet soldiers arrive, Debrecen, partially recovered from typhus, is torn between a desire for revenge and nostalgia. Gritting my teeth, I tried to walk again. I think and envy Farkas and Brüll, even though I miss them. I miss the other faces too. I miss everyone I ever talked to. I don't know anyone here anymore; young people I've never seen before are gesturing around me." Revenge from other prisoners is mentioned: settling scores with brutal hoods chasing them as they flee to escape. He also notes the well-deserved punishment of some torturers who escaped the camp, only to die of typhus days or weeks later.

But the personal confrontation is of the writer's experience, leaving us with this remarkably human, gritty and unbending story of his survival. In the face of contemporary atrocities, such as that of Russia in Ukraine or Hamas in Israel, this certainly teaches us what we need to learn to prevent them. /Telegraph/