From The Hell Of The Holocaust

In an era when interfaith religious dialogue is becoming more common, FROM THE HELL OF THE HOLOCAUST by Eugene Hollander is an extraordinary autobiographical narrative of survival during the Holocaust. The tale is made even more compelling by the highly unusual circumstance that the author and his wife, though separated during the war, both managed to survive and, once reunited, were able to take up their lives together, raising a family and finding success and security in a new country. The author of this powerful and all-too-true volume was born and raised in Hungary in a family that was both prosperous and religiously observant. Soon after Hungary entered the war as an ally of Germany, Hollander, like most other young Jewish men, was drafted into an army labor battalion. While serving in this unit, commanded by anti-Semitic officers who gleefully mistreated them, he and his fellow Jews were regularly forced to perform the most onerous, dangerous tasks at the front. Although he was able to escape to Budapest and rejoin his wife for a time, worse awaited the Hollanders when the Hungarian fascists began rounding up Jews and deporting them to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. Kept alive as a slave laborer, the author vividly describes the psychic and physical suffering, the pervasive terror, and the irrational brutality of life in Nazi work camps in Silesia and Germany proper. Managing to survive nonetheless, he regained his freedom after the war and was reunited again with his wife in Budapest, where he began a career as a businessman. Eventually he and his wife made their way to Austria, then to Switzerland, and eventually to the United States. Eugene Hollander's unbelievable but undeniably true story is a powerful human document and a testimonial to the courage and vision of the human spirit. Both scholars and ordinary readers will find it fascinating and valuable.