Nightmares : memoirs of the years of horror under Nazi rule in Europe, 1939-1945 / Konrad Charmatz ; translated from the Yiddish by Miriam Dashkin Beckerman ; edited by Matthew Kudelka.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Charmatz, Konrad, 1910-1986.

Series:

Religion, theology, and the Holocaust

Standardized Title:

Ḳoshmarn. English

Language:

English

Yiddish

Subjects (All):

Charmatz, Konrad, 1910-1986.

Charmatz, Konrad.

Jews--Poland--Biography.

Jews.

Poland.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Personal narratives.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Poland--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Personal narratives.

Physical Description:

xiv, 274 pages ; 24 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press, 2003.

Summary:

A memoir by an award-winning author in its first English translation. When World War II erupted in Europe, Konrad Charmatz was a prospering businessman in Sosnowiec, Poland, a loving son, and an aspiring poet. For the next seven years he witnessed the Holocaust as it destroyed his family, his country, and his culture. In this astonishing story of suffering and survival, he gives his own personal account of the Warsaw ghetto, the death chambers at Auschwitz, the transport trains, the slave labor camps of Dachau, and the liberation. And from the perspective of the renowned journalist he later became, he also describes how the Holocaust was carried out, not only at the level of governments and their armies, but at the level of the individuals who took its orders. Few people survived the Holocaust from such close range or for so long, and few remembered it with the eye of a practiced journalist.

Contents:

1. Not God, not Man, but the Devil Himself 3

2. My First Contact with the Shtetl 6

3. People on the Run 8

4. The First Rosh Hashana under German Occupation 10

5. Getting Used to the Troubles 12

6. Sosnowiec 14

7. Terror and Evil Decrees 16

8. The Tricks of the Nazis 18

9. The Judenrat 20

10. The Problem of Shelter in the Ghetto 23

11. A Jewish Cafe in the Ghetto 26

12. Liquidations 28

13. Labor Camps 30

14. The First Transfer 33

15. The Second Transfer 38

16. The Third Mass Transfer 41

17. The Mournful Mood in the Ghetto 45

18. The Turn Comes to Liquidate the Workshops 48

19. The Last Action 50

20. The Liquidation of the Judenrat 51

21. The Completion of the Liquidation 53

Part 2 My Personal Fate 56

22. I Fall into the Grasp of the Gestapo 57

23. Those in the Prison 61

24. A Cell of Jews Only 66

25. My Mother Appears to Plead My Case 68

26. The Noose Around My Neck Gets Tighter and Tighter 70

27. "If a Misfortune Is Destined, It Will Come Right into the House" 74

28. I Get a Notice to Report to the Dulag 78

29. We Arrive at the Slave Labor Camp 80

30. The Day Arrives 84

31. The First Day in Hell 87

32. Block Number 7 90

33. Life in the Block at Birkenau 94

34. The Work in Birkenau Camp 96

35. A Strange Meeting in Hell 98

36. I Break Down 105

37. Warsaw 109

38. The First Day Amongst the Wreckage in Warsaw 112

39. Work in the Ruins 116

40. Destiny Gives Me a Chance 120

41. Relations Between the Camp Inmates and the Poles 123

42. I Belong to the Privileged Class 124

43. Block Elders 127

44. My Luck Runs Out 132

45. The First Day in the Strafkommando 137

46. Jews Bake Matzo in Hell 141

47. Typhoid Breaks Out in the Camp 144

48. After the Epidemic 147

49. We Await Evacuation from Warsaw 149

50. We March out of Warsaw 154

51. The Second Day of the Death March from Warsaw to Dachau 159

52. The Third Day of the March 161

53. The Miracle of Water 163

54. The Hellish Scenes in the Locked Train Wagons 167

55. We Reach Dachau 172

56. Muhldorf and Waldlager (Forest Camp) 174

57. A New Trial 177

58. Destiny Offers Me a New Chance 179

59. The Klausenburg Rebbe 184

60. The "Good Germans" 188

61. The Last Winter in the Concentration Camp 190

62. News from the Front 193

63. The Rescue Operation to Munich 196

64. Mercy, or Fear for the Future 199

65. The Front Gets Closer 203

66. The Devil Trips Me Up 207

67. My Last Chance

Run Away 211

68. The Leap to Freedom 215

69. My Fate Hangs in the Balance 221

70. I Win a Battle 225

71. The Downfall of the Third Reich 228

72. The Last Act of German Resistance 230

73. My First Night as a Free Man 233

74. I Become a Confidant of the U.S. Army 237

75. Jewish Revenge 239

76. I Tear Myself Away from Bloody German Soil 241

77. We Arrive in Paris 244

78. The First Contacts with My Family 248

79. I Depart for Poland 250

80. First Steps on Polish Soil 252

81. Sosnowiec 254

82. I Am Once More in Krakow 258

83. In the City of My Birth, Ostrowiec 263.

ISBN:

0815607067

OCLC:

51966438