VIRTUAL - BOOK DISCUSSION - Cold Crematorium

Please join us in celebration of the liberation of the Nazi Holocaust camps and end of World War II, eighty years ago.

When veteran journalist, poet, and novelist József Debreczeni arrived in Auschwitz, he was “lucky" to be sent to a life of slave labor rather than directly to the gas chambers. He survived, and after the war wrote Cold Crematorium: Reporting From the Land of Auschwitz , which one reviewer called “the harshest, most merciless indictment of Nazism ever written.”

The work was first published in Hungarian in 1950 but was never translated into a world language due to McCarthyism, Cold War hostilities, and antisemitism. Until now! As of December, 2024 the book is available in 10 languages, and went on to be on the "10 Best Books of 2024" list according to the New York Times.

Alex Bruner, the author’s nephew and a child of Holocaust survivors, will discuss the historical and family context for his uncle's deportation to Auschwitz and describe the author's hellish journey through multiple slave labor camps. Bruner will share pictures, documents, as well as audio recordings from the book. Bruner will review why his uncle wrote the book, how it was initially received, the reasons it was not translated into a world language until now, and the lessons one can draw from the work, not the least of which is hope.