🌟 "Cold Crematorium" by József Debreczeni

Translated from Hungarian into English by Paul Olchváry. I read the Dutch edition, translated by Frans van Nes. This is a Holocaust testimonial from a journalist who survived three different concentration camps, originally published in 1950. I'm especially interested in early reports, when the general denial of what had happened was still quite strong. This title didn't receive any translations until the 2020s. What can I say about a book like this beyond stating its importance? It's a well-written, brutally honest look into how dehumanization, torture and extermination takes place. Artificial hierarchy is created in the camps to keep order. The way Jewish people were forced to participate in their own destruction, it's peak cynical and efficient, and naturally extremely upsetting to read about. Like several other early testimonials, the author mentions multiple companies/organizations that voluntarily made use of the slave labor of the camps. There were passages about tunneling work…