The Yellow Star - The moving narrative of a boy who survived Auswitz and Buchenwald

The story of the horrors of Nazi concentration camps has never been told with such strength and realism as in this deeply moving narrative. These are the memoirs of a boy whose childhood was shattered by the terror of Nazism, and whose manhood was forged in the hell of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

S. B. Unsdorfer was born the son of a well-known rabbi in Bratislava, a "mother community" for the Jewish population of Czechoslovakia. Because of the importance of his father's position, the family was permitted to remain in the city after the German occupation to carry on the function for which they were required. Only those Jews whose specialized tasks could not be carried out by others were left unmolested in the German-dominated portion of war-torn Europe.

The Unsdorfers lived in the ghettos of the city and were safe there until 1944 when Germany made its final and fanatical move for victory. Father, mother, and the young son fled for their lives to a castle near Bratislava where they relied on forged Argentine papers to keep them safe.

The papers, however, proved valueless and the family was moved to a town named Sered and from there to the infamous camps of Auschwitz. As with all other Jews who came to the dreaded place, the Unsdorfers were separated from one another and all but the son were sent to their death.

The writer of this story was then nineteen years of age and a prime candidate for any one of the many Nazi camps or factories. He was sent to Buchenwald for a period and then transferred to an airplane factory at Nieder-Orschel. Throughout his long and terrible journey, he and his fellow prisoners were mercilessly molested by S. S. men but they held on to life tenaciously, and their religious faith never wavered.

Then the war was over, and the workers and prisoners were freed and permitted to go home. "Home! Home!' cried the Czechs, dancing and kissing in mad jubilation. We, the Jews, sank down on the floor again. No happy hopes of reunion for us. Instead, tears, big, heavy, and salty tears stored away from the moment of our arrival in Auschwitz, forced their way out of our eyes and down our sunken cheeks. Only now did we have time to think of our dear ones who had perished in Auschwitz, and who were no longer here to see the hour of liberation and join with us in what could have been the happiest day of our lives. Home? What a travesty. Home, a place that no longer was, and never would be again. "Free? Free? What were we freed for? Only to mourn and lament for the rest of our days over the greatest tragedy that had ever befallen our people in our long and trying history."

S. B. Unsdorfer has written a deeply moving account of his life as a devout Jew in the concentration camps and factories of the Nazi Reich. The Yellow Star is not a book soon to be forgotten.

PAAR (GEPLAKTE) SCHEURTJES IN DE OMSLAG