Synopsis
Béla Zsolt's Holocaust memoir was banned in his native Hungary for nearly four decades because of its unsparing exploration of the situation there during the war. Zsolt reveals his homeland as a hotbed of fascism committed to an escalating program of genetic cleansing in concert with Nazi Germany. A Jewish journalist whose World War I service to his country didn't improve his position, Zsolt was sent to a labor camp, where he witnessed his share of unspeakable atrocities. He was scheduled to be sent to Auschwitz, but managed, miraculously, to survive after a short span at Bergen-Belsen, and, with his wife, to escape to Switzerland, where he lived until his early death in 1949. His wife committed suicide, and it is said that Zsolt died of despair brought on by the experiences he describes so eloquently in this powerful volume.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2004-11-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 324 pages | | Height: | 8.8 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 23.2 oz |
Publisher's Note
Suppressed by the Communists for nearly forty years and never before published in English, Nine Suitcases is one of the first—and greatest—memoirs of the Holocaust ever written. Originally published in Hungary in weekly installments starting in 1946, it tells the harrowing story of Béla Zsolt’s experiences in the ghetto and as a forced laborer in the Ukraine. It gives not only a rare insight into Hungarian fascism, but also a shocking exposure to the cruelty, indifference, selfishness, cowardice and betrayal of which human beings—the victims no less than the perpetrators—are capable in extreme circumstances.
Apart from being one of the earliest writers on the Holocaust, Zsolt is also one of the most powerful. He bears comparison with Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, or Imre Kertész. Both an accomplished novelist and a highly skilled journalist, he was reporting and analyzing these appalling events soon after they occurred with exceptional clarity and a devastating blend of angry despair and cool detachment.
Zsolt was spared Auschwitz, but he witnessed and suffered some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust elsewhere; his nightmarish but meticulously realistic chronicle of smaller and larger crimes against humanity is as riveting as it is horrifying. The rediscovery and publication of Nine Suitcases is an event of great historical importance.
Industry Reviews
"An affecting memoir of the Holocaust by a noted Hungarian author, with many an unusual twist....[A] valuable account of daily life under Hungarian fascism--banned for four decades even under Communist rule."
Kirkus (08/15/2004)
"As one of the first Holocaust memoirs, this piercing account displays a raw freshness that it as vivid as it is horrifying....[Szolt's] powerful, poignant honesty shows little mercy to his readers' sensibilities."
Publishers Weekly (09/06/2004)
"Béla Zsolt's NINE SUITCASES is the latest testimony to make it into English..., and is one of the best....NINE SUITCASES is not a book for the squeamish. Most of it makes for grim reading, but if many people were unaverage in their cruelty, many were unaverage in their generosity and courage. Zsolt's bouts of apathy and cunning kept him alive, but he was finally saved by others. There are also many moments of black humour....[T]he reader is treated to regular servings of shrewd observation of humanity and inhumanity. This is by far the best book I've come across on the subject of the extermination of Hungary's Jews."
Guardian (London) - Tibor Fischer (01/10/2004)
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