Synopses & Reviews
In Auschwitz, memory meant life: remembering the humanity extinguished by the death camps and hoping to survive to tell what had been endured. In Auschwitz, Charlotte Delbo collected from memory the plays, stories, and poems that fed her companions' spirits. There she committed to memory all that she would one day describe for future generations. In Days and Memory, her last book, completed shortly before her death, Delbo becomes the voice of memory. Poems and vignettes, dialogues and meditations, interweave her experience in the death camp with the sufferings of others around the world, depicting the power of dignity and decency in the face of inhumanity. A remarkable achievement, stark and lyrical, passionate and fiery, this virtuoso performance demands attention-and rewards readers with beauty, sorrow, and hope.
Review
"A collection of moving, chiseled prose narratives." --
Kirkus ReviewsReview
"Delbo's book ranks among the best of the literature of the Holocaust." --
BooklistSynopsis
In Auschwitz, memory meant life: remembering the humanity extinguished by the death camps and hoping to survive to tell what had been endured. Charlotte Delbo, a non-Jew sent to Auschwitz for being a member of the French resistance movement, recalls the poems, vignettes, and meditations that fed her companions' spirits, interweaving her experiences with the sufferings of others and depicting dignity and decency in the face of inhumanity.
About the Author
Charlotte Delbo was traveling in South America when she learned of the fall of France to the Nazis. Upon returning home, she and her husband were imprisoned by the Gestapo. After the murder of her husband, Delbo was held for nine months before being deported to Auschwitz in January 1943. She was in her seventies when she died in 1985. Days and Memory, published posthumously, appeared as La mémoire et les jours later that same year.
Table of Contents
Preface by Rosette Lamont
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X: Tomb of the Dictator
XI
XII
XIII: Warsaw
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII: The Madwomen of May
XVIV: Kalavrita of the Thousand Antigones
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII