Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust

by Bernard Gotfryd

Overview

Extraordinary true stories of the author's teenaged years in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Recipient of the 1991 PEN/Martha Albrand Special Citation for Nonfiction; Winner of a Christopher Award

This collection of extraordinary true stories—including nine stories new to this expanded edition— illuminates the experiences of a young Polish boy before World War II, through the gathering storm of Nazism, into the death camps, to poignant reunions many years later. Here we watch young Bernard break curfew to secure a rare chicken for the High Holidays—only to see it given to the Christian janitor because it is not kosher; we meet Alexandra, a Polish resistance fighter who enlists the teenaged Bernard in the cause but who perishes while he survives; and we share Bernard's fear as he spends one very uncomfortable night—hours after his liberation—in the seemingly sympathetic home of the parents of a young SS officer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801863103
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	05/19/2000
Edition description:	expanded edition
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	220,182
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.59(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bernard Gotfryd was born in Radom, Poland. During World War II he was involved with the Polish underground until being imprisoned by the Nazis. He spent time in six concentration camps before his liberation from Gusen II in May of 1945. Two years later Gotfryd emigrated to the United States, where he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps before joining the staff of Newsweek in 1957. He was moved to begin recording his Holocaust memories when he photographed the Pope's visit to Poland in 1983—Gotfryd's first visit to Poland in forty years. Currently he divides his time between writing and photography at his home in Forest Hills, New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Chapter 1. Theft of a Table
Chapter 2. The Circus Comes to Town
Chapter 3. The Stutterer
Chapter 4. The Music Teacher
Chapter 5. The Wedding Picture
Chapter 6. The Violin
Chapter 6. My Debut
Chapter 7. The Fountain Pen
Chapter 8. Mr. G.
Chapter 9. Masha
Chapter 10. A Chicken for the Holidays
Chapter 11. Alexandra
Chapter 12. Kurt
Chapter 13. Helmut Reiner
Chapter 14. The Last Morning
Chapter 15. Anton the Dove Fancier
Chapter 16. On Guilt
Chapter 17. Three Eggs
Chapter 18. The Execution
Chapter 19. My Brother's Friend
Chapter 20. Hans Bürger, #15252
Chapter 21. The Last Camp
Chapter 22. An Encounter in Linz
Chapter 23. Reunions
Chapter 24. Inge
Chapter 25. America at Last
Chapter 26. Old Friends
Chapter 27. Walking in the Footsteps of My Childhood
Chapter 28. On a Rainy Night
Chapter 29. On Memory

What People are Saying About This

Oliver Sacks

Astonishing and important... quite marvelous... these stories are real pearls.

Elie Wiesel

An important contribution to the literature of memory.

Primo Levi

Bernard Gotfryd... shows himself to be an exemplary man, mild and strong, never desperate, in constant search for goodness even in the most extreme situations. We are grateful to him for this book because it makes us think.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Poignant and painful reading . . . so immediate that it is as if it . . . is happening today.

From the Publisher

Astonishing and important . . . quite marvelous . . . these stories are real pearls.
—Oliver Sacks

Bernard Gotfryd . . . shows himself to be an exemplary man, mild and strong, never desperate, in constant search for goodness even in the most extreme situations. We are grateful to him for this book because it makes us think.
—Primo Levi

An important contribution to the literature of memory.
—Elie Wiesel

The book gave me a bit of hope about the worst things in us, and that is an achievement.
—Norman Mailer

Poignant and painful reading . . . so immediate that it is as if it . . . is happening today.
—Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Norman Mailer

The book gave me a bit of hope about the worst things in us, and that is an achievement.

Editorial Reviews

From time to time one comes across a book of true tales that not only has the power to be painfully moving, but also terribly informing about what it was like to survive the Holocaust. Bernard Gotfryd, in his true tales, has given us such a book.
—Dimensions

Thirty autobiographical stories whose banal details and well-placed silences haunt long after the book is finished.
—Joan Baum, The Independent

Written with integrity and honesty, Anton helps us to recognize human strength and precariousness, and the complexity of human existence. The book rouses our responsibility and makes us face people and history through the specific voices Gotfryd lets us hear, and the specific faces and places he lets us see.
—Yasuhiro Tae, Bulletin of the Center for Holocaust Studies

[A] fine collection of 30 true stories, some nostalgic, others heartbreaking, all of them moving.
—Jewish Book World

From the Publisher

Thirty autobiographical stories whose banal details and well-placed silences haunt long after the book is finished.

The Independent - Joan Baum

From time to time one comes across a book of true tales that not only has the power to be painfully moving, but also terribly informing about what it was like to survive the Holocaust. Bernard Gotfryd, in his true tales, has given us such a book.

Dimensions

Written with integrity and honesty, Anton helps us to recognize human strength and precariousness, and the complexity of human existence. The book rouses our responsibility and makes us face people and history through the specific voices Gotfryd lets us hear, and the specific faces and places he lets us see.

Bulletin of the Center for Holocaust Studies - Yasuhiro Tae

[A] fine collection of 30 true stories, some nostalgic, others heartbreaking, all of them moving.

Jewish Book World

Thirty autobiographical stories whose banal details and well-placed silences haunt long after the book is finished.

— Joan Baum

The Independent