Baranovich Online
Lot 76:
Star of Ashes, or ”Ash-Shtern, ” the well-known book of KA. Tzetnik (Yechiel De-Nur) about the Holocaust. Includes lithographs by Gershon Knispel. Tel Aviv. 1967. 203 p., width is greater than length: 30×22 cm.
Yechiel De-Nur was a Holocaust survivor from Poland and a prolific Holocaust writer, with 15 books on the topic. He wrote under the pseudonym Ka-Tzetnik or Ka. Tzet, a Yiddishism meaning “concentration camp inmate” that is short for Konzentrationslager. He became famous for his testimony at the Eichmann trials, where he portrayed Auschwitz as “another planet.” He managed to say nine sentences in testimony before he fainted. In his book Al Tishlach Yadcha el Hana’ar (Do Not Raise a Hand Against the Boy), R. Yisrael Meir Lau, former Chief Rabbi of Israel who is also a Holocaust survivor (from Buchenwald), strongly contests this definition, arguing that to do so minimizes the human side of the atrocities. He also contests the fatalistic attitude of De-Nur, preferring to take the approach of faith which obligates demonstrating victory over the Nazis by renewal and the rebuilding new life.
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