THE HOUSE OF ASHES

by Oscar Pinkus ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 29, 1964

eliberately dispassionate and disassociated, this recalls the author's experience as a youth in Poland during the war years. A native of Losice, a town of 8000 people, ninety per cent of whom were Jewish, he endured a haunted existence seeking to stay out of the hands of the Germans and the dreaded Treblinka camp. The early period of occupation, with the Judenrat acting as liaison with the Germans, with the relative security of forced labor, gave way to the ghetto, where they were ""locked in jail without rations"" and fell prey to cold, hunger and epidemics. Even this world offered only false safety: the purges came, timed with Jewish holidays for maximum anguish. The author and a portion of his family escaped to a shelter on farm, where a pit became their home and they survived at the mercy of a mercenary farmer. There they received news of Stalingrad, of Italy's capitulation; there they witnessed the coming of the Polish AK -- ""heroes who executed ghosts"" and were simply another enemy after the Germans. Finally they staggered out of their pit to watch the Russian tanks which meant rescue, and found no tears to meet the occasion. There is an impersonality here that fails to engage even while it impresses with its story of suffering; it is almost as though the author still fixed a stunned gaze upon the scene. What results is one more testimonial to senseless oppression, which may perhaps reach an acclimated audience.

Pub Date: July 29, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: orld

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1964

Categories: NONFICTION