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Cover image of Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust
Cover image of Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust
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Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust

Bernard Gotfryd

expanded edition
Publication Date
Binding Type

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 AwardNominated for the New Visions Award from the Quality Paperback Book Club

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...

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 AwardNominated for the New Visions Award from the Quality Paperback Book Club

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.

Reviews

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.

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

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.

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

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

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
248
ISBN
9780801863103
Illustration Description
21 b&w photos
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
C

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

Author Bio
Bernard Gotfryd
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Bernard Gotfryd

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...