By Bread Alone: The Story of A-4685 by Mel Mermelstein

by Mel Mermelstein

By Bread Alone is the powerful story of one man’s survival and of the decimation of his family, many friends, and millions of other Jews. The experiences related in this graphic story of the Nazi holocaust are brutal. In addition to the text, there are numerous black & white photos included.

Genres: Holocaust, History, Jewish, Nonfiction, Book Club, World War II, Biography

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Charlene Mathe · Rating 5 out of 5]

In ways, this is the only Holocaust history book you ever need to read. It is a brutal book, but a necessary one. It is the story of one man, what it was like day to day in the extermination camps, and how hope was kept alive.
"I've been asked," he writes, "Why study the Holocaust? Why not forget such horrors?"
"My answer, as a survivor of the Holocaust, is 'Because never before in recorded history has man revealed himself more than during this period. The mask of mankind has dropped and we must therefore take the opportunity to learn what it is in man that makes it possible for such a Holocaust to occur. What can we do to avoid future Holocausts? ....' All these questions and more we must ask if we are to prevent the destruction of civilization. 'THE STUDY OF THE HOLOCAUST IS THE STUDY OF MANKIND.'" (Caps are the authors.)
I own and have read many books on the Holocaust. More is at stake in this nightmare than the tragedy of the Jewish people. The role of international business, Western powers, civil institutions (think International Red Cross, the church, etc.) and press must also be considered.
Had we better learned from this larger history, we would not now be repeating it.

[Dem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow

[Jessika Caruso · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t put into words my thoughts about this book. So here are two of the most illuminating passages:


1. Mel Mermelstein explains the title of the book:

“The events moved quickly. First we were told that an Allied plane had dropped a message that read: “Hold on; the Allies will soon be in the camp to liberate you.”
The message was stuffed in a loaf of bread, and I felt that the bread itself was the message. The fact that they even thought of using a loaf of bread to communicate with us was both natural and intriguing. Bread was heavy enough to serve as a good missile, and would land where aimed. But it was a soft and nonexplosive one that carried both the energy and promise of life within it. Bread would certainly be picked up and not neglected, and it would certainly be broken to reveal the note.
For me it seemed an inspiration that a loaf of bread from the skies – manna from heaven – should proclaim our imminent liberation. Bread had been the staple of our diet. If I had bread, I could survive.
“Man cannot live by bread alone,” the Bible says, meaning that spiritual food is also necessary for sustenance. But for me, the first struggle was to preserve a body in which the spirit could live. Contrary to Biblical teaching, I found over and over that I could live “by bread alone.” The gift of bread, from our Allies who has finally destroyed the Nazis, told me that there were people who understood our suffering and our need. They were coming to help us, which in the first place meant to feed us – bread. There would be bread!” –p. 205

2. This is what Mel’s uncle tells him when he is the only one of his family to return to Munkacs (his hometown) alive:

“My uncle placed his hand upon my head and said, ‘God wanted it to be so, and His judgment is holy.’ Slowly I lifted my head, incredulous at the words he just uttered.
‘I know…I know, Moishele. Listen, before you ask, before you question, repeat after me: “Boruch dayen emess..”’ I repeated the words that meant, “Blessed is the Righteous Judge.” The traditional words on learning of a death seemed harshly inappropriate. But even as I said them, a softening set in.
‘Do you want me to bless God for this unbearable pain? Do you want me to call ‘just’ this hideous unrighteousness?’ I don’t recall the words I used, but my sense of being put upon remains with me. To believe that God was anywhere to be found at Auschwitz was too much.
‘Moishele, Moishele, please…’ My uncle was crying now. ‘Your questions are just, but you’re not the first to ask them. ‘As we bless God for the good, so must we bless him for the evil.’ Those are the words of the Talmud. They’re words beyond understanding; but if we cannot say them, we cannot hope. Bitterness, yes…but hopelessness, no. The Jewish way is to bless and to hope, and to bless and to hope, until hope and blessing surmount the pain and even the bitterness, and the living learn how to go on.’
My uncle continued saying, ‘God is righteous. God is good. It’s people who sometimes forget; who let evil rule them; who lose the sense of the image of God with themselves and become beasts of prey.’
‘Maybe we should translate the prayers,’ he said. ‘Blessed is the God who will judge righteously.’ He does not forget. Sometimes it seems as if He needs time to assimilate everything He has seen, and to react to it and give recompense. But you’ll see it, Moishele, you’re young enough. You’ll see. He does not forget!’ Those last words were almost a prayer, or were they an imprecation? I tried to understand, but I was impatient.”

---p. 239-240

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF AN AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR, AND HIS VICTORY OVER THE IHR

Author Mel Mermelstein (born in Czechoslovakia) in 1981 filed a successful lawsuit against the (then-most-dominant) Holocaust denial organization, the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), forcing them to issue him a formal apology and damages of $90,000.

He explains in the ‘Acknowledgements’ of this 1979 book, “In several places throughout this book the number ‘4 million Auschwitz-Birkenau victims’ is referred to. However, since this book… was last published … It was … later established that approximately one (1) million to one million five hundred thousand … innocent men, women, and children … were gassed, and systematically murdered, of which most were European Jews. Others included Polish Nationals, Gypsies, Russian prisoners of war and other European Nationals.”

He states in the Foreword, “How was it possible for a Holocaust to take place in such a highly advanced society?... Can it ever happen again?... This book may not have all the answers, but a reader of my first-hand experience will be enlightened and perhaps a little better informed about the awesome era known as the Holocaust… Who is to blame for it and whom shall we hold accountable? All these questions and more we must ask if we are to prevent the destruction of civilization. The study of the Holocaust is the study of mankind.”

He recounts that in 1939, “while Hitler was sending his elite troops across the remainder of Czechoslovakia… [and as] the Horthy regime extended its reign over the territory, anti-Semitism raged… No Jew was spared; your friend of yesterday turned against you… Government restrictions became gradually more severe. Business permits for Jews were canceled and their stores closed. Jewish children were limited to primary grades. ‘Incidents’ were manufactured, and innocent Jews were constantly arrested… the Jews still hoped that some day this imposed hatred would subside… But political realities had already decreed otherwise.” (Pg. 5-8)

He continues, “Roundups became a common practice for the Nazis. It was not unusual to see them hauling people off the streets twenty-four hours a day… It was apparent that every man, woman and child caught, would be crammed into boxcars and shipped off… There they would be handed over to the SS special commandos, the Einsatzgruppen, Hitler’s hand-picked killing squads.” (Pg. 17)

He recalls, “On the fifth day after the Nazis arrived, a Gestapo ordinance was posted all over town ordering the Jews to wear yellow armbands… On the eighth day Jewish shops were marked with yellow paint and all non-Jews were forbidden to trade there. Two days later the Jews were ordered to be off the streets by six in the evening… and finally, all Jews were placed under house arrest. My career as an apprentice was over. My life as a Nazi prisoner had begun.” (Pg. 26)

He continues, “By now, most of us were resigned to a ghetto form of existence, as long as they left us alone. In the past month we had been stripped, haunted and brutalized, our homes and livelihood taken from us, we were no longer human, rational or civilized… A young man observes, ‘Unless the Russians speed up their campaign and rescue us, we are doomed… Our task is to see that we live long enough to enable them to save us.’” (Pg. 67, 70)

He reports, “In front of us stood the SS commandant, whip clenched tightly in his hand… What could he have seen as he viewed us? A weary group of harried, wet, sick human beings, trying to preserve some element of pride, of their humanity, of their confidence in themselves and their hope for their future. If he saw any of this he said nothing... ‘The Demon,’ someone whispered. That… was to be his name among us from then on… The Demon was a marvel of nervous sadism.” (Pg. 74-75) “From every community in the area books were taken… The Demon was always checking to see that all… were quickly tossed in the ovens. The flames consumed our holy books, the hand-written scrolls of … the Bible.” (Pg. 80) He adds, “And the barbarisms went on and on, limited only by the Demon’s imagination.” (Pg. 84)

He notes, “The collection of money in our town … was an attempt to meet a payoff arranged by Eichmann and his gang. They agreed to allow some Jews to escape from the fate of Auschwitz for money. Pay or die was the deal… And money was not the only acceptable ransom. Jewish children without their mothers were to be exchanged for military hardware and supplies… Urgent messages were sent… Churchill was advised, Roosevelt was given first-hand information, and Stalin could smell the stench of burning flesh. Aerial photos were sent… The four chimneys at Auschwitz-Birkenau stood tall. All twenty-four death camps were spotted and marked. The nine hundred slave labor camps had been identified.” (Pg. 86)

He explains, “Now, we were no longer considered Hungarian Jews but prisoners of the NAZIS, CONDEMNED. Whatever strength we had taken from our friends, and from our sense of belonging to a particular place, was now denied us. We knew now that there would be no more parcels from the outside… I felt for the first time that there would be no return.” (Pg. 94) “It was in the afternoon of our first day in Birkenau… ‘This must be hell.’ I kept saying, ‘Where is our God?’” (Pg. 122) “[M]y prison number … [was] tattooed deep into the skin of my left forearm… From that day on I was … not a human being, but simply a number, A-4685.” (Pg. 130)

He recounts, “Numbers were called and one by one we filed out of the barracks… a tall, slim-looking officer … gave us a speech: ‘You men are hand-picked. You’ll be transported to a new camp… You’ll be well fed if you obey…Attempted escapes will not be tolerated.’ … this officer was in charge of the entire Auschwitz III complex… he told us that the new sub-camp… was to be a model camp… I looked at him with some trust… I was frightened when the convoy began to roll, but I was leaving Auschwitz-Birkenau alive.” (Pg. 132)

He records, “The coupons we’d receive a month before were still valid, so I decided to cash them in… for two cigarettes… I wanted to smoke them, but I wanted bread---bread alone.” (Pg. 157)

He continues, “It was a relief knowing that we had finally arrived, but we found the camp in the midst of its own evacuation. Rumors began to spread that the Nazis were retreating and the Russians were advancing rapidly… [Pista] was assigned to be our SS guard… He let me reach into his cargo pack to take some bread… We marched all day… [Pista] turned to me and said quizzingly, ‘You wouldn’t let them shoot me, would you, if we were captured by the Russians?’ ‘No, I would shield you as you have shielded me,’ I answered. Thus I entered into a secret agreement with an SS man. I was confronted with the disturbing matter of ‘the good Nazi.’ Pista… befriended me and shielded me. I wondered why. Was it because it was already late in the war, and he may have seen the handwriting on the wall?... That was inconceivable… Feeling all that hatred, I learned to forgive as well. Forgiveness and mercy were the central traits of the Jewish Bible, and the tradition I had been taught at home.” (Pg. 172-174)

He states, “The massacres of Jews was ruthless and unceasing. The idea of liberation and survival was but a myth to every Jew… Even as we hoped to be liberated we could not help but think of it as a dream… Where would we go to? There was no Israel to go to, at least not yet.” (Pg. 218)

Later, after liberation, “I learned that the British, who had kept Jews out of Palestine during the war when they most needed a place for refuge from Hitler’s terror, had not changed. They were brutal, and would not yield to Jewish aspirations for a home in the ancient land of Israel. The only way for the surviving Jews to get to Palestine was by means of an underground journey.” (Pg. 245)

He also includes at the end of the book (Pgs. 270-281) reproductions of all the documents detailing his controversies with the IHR (which now, under its final director, has seemingly abandoned Holocaust denial, in favor of attacking Zionism and ‘Jewish influence’).

This book will be of great interest to those studying the Holocaust, as well as Holocaust denial.

[Patricia Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

By Bread Alone is the powerful story of one man’s survival and of the decimation of his family, many friends, and millions of other Jews. The experiences related in this graphic story of the Nazi holocaust are brutal.

While this was an autobiography that depicted vicious and inhumane treatment of the author and so many others, it was a story that compelled me to read page after page and examine picture after picture. I cannot even imagine living through the horrendous atrocities day after day as Mr. Mermelstein did.

This depiction of The Holocaust is one of the best recappings of that shocking and disgusting time in our history that I’ve ever read. God bless you, Mr. Mermelstein. I’m so glad you told your story. It belongs in high school and college history classes to keep it alive.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised by the things that I learned from this book. It was fascinating and horrifying. There were some things that I had never read before. There were times that I had to stop reading because it was too much. It's amazing that we as humans need reminders to treat each other as human beings. Man's inhumanity to man has always fascinated me. Thanks Jen for the recommendation.

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the beginning of the narrative, there is an incident in which Mermelstein and his brother are told "never forget you are Magyars", but when the Germans round them up for transport, they are no longer Hungarian Jews, only Jews and condemned to die at the hands of the Nazis (by the end of the war, Mermelstein is a Ukrainian). Some of their non-Jewish neighbors help them, others hate them. Some of the worst pain in these stories is described by Mermelstein, and it happens during the roundup: the lack of information, the fear at the choices people have to make suddenly, the anguish of not being able to protect loved ones, something as simple as forcing an old, observant man to cut his beard. Embedded in Mermelstein's account are the small acts of disobedience, exposing the lie that the Jews simply went like sheep to the slaughter. But it does shine a light on some factors that I don't think many in the U.S. really grasp with our eyes coming decades afterwards: one being how little information was available to these people, and the level of deception practiced by the Nazis. When the boxcars arrive in Birkenau, someone barks at the unwitting new arrivals "Have you not heard of Auschwitz in 1944, you creeps?" Two being how important religion was in these villages. The grandfather forced to cut his beard stops eating for the shame of it, submitting himself to God's will. In the camp, Mermelstein's father impresses upon the two brothers that they must stay apart. "If we're apart, I won't see your suffering and you won't see mine." Throughout there were astonishing, sometimes bizarre, vignettes. One was Irena "a frail Polish civilian slavegirl" who surreptitiously passed him soup and bread under a boxcar. The Kommandant brings in entertainment for the camp residents - did the Nazis think these starving and exhausted people could enjoy entertainment like normal people would? Maybe they believed their own narrative of a "work camp"? Mermelstein at one point yearns to be executed because he believes those to be executed are given a last meal and thinks it would be worth dying for. With the Russian advance comes the forced evacuation with all its horrors and some of the most psychedelic scenes thus far, such as the families gathered at the windows of houses in Manstein waving and greeting the broken-down prisoners, ultimately showering them with bread from their tables, a "rain of compassion", until the SS point their guns at the villagers threateningly, ordering them to stop: "These are Jews!" shout the SS. Each chapter is followed by many documents and photographs. I don't know anything about this book - did it have an editor? was it self published? - but it's a firsthand account, and raw. We lost Mermelstein to CoVid in 2022.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the personal account of Mel Mermelstein and his experiences during the Holocaust. He is very detailed in his recollection of how friends and neighbors began to change and others began to disappear. His recollection of living conditions and food conditions were also thoroughly noted. You get a real sense of the despair and terror that he and so many others felt while living under oppression and while being interned in concentration camps. I simply cannot imagine having the mental fortitude to endure that, much less the physical capability. It is amazing to me that so many people managed to survive the starvation, experiments, terrible living conditions, and slave labor.

This was a deeply emotional book, so if you aren't into that type of thing, I wouldn't read this one. If you are interested in World War II and the Holocaust, this is not one that I would pass up. This is a book that I have had for a couple of years that I found at my local used book store. I have so many books that I am finally getting around to reading this year that are absolute gems, and this is one of them. Personal accounts of travesties like this are so important to this historical record. I hope that the author of this book was able to find some peace after getting this all out on paper.

[Josef Komensky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is very gripping account of events that did happend to Mel Mermelstain who was as a teenager taken with his whole family to the Concentration camp Auschwitz. It is terrible account of astrocities that he did withness / been submitted to on his jurney to survive.

[Therese]

Per the book, The Triumphant Spirit (about Holocaust survivor)

[Neiko · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insane journey, that is equally heartbreaking and terrifying to read. To read and see in detail what jews had to goo through during the holocaust is a reminder we all need.

[Mel Ostrov · Rating 5 out of 5]

By Bread Alone
The Story of A-4685
By
Mel Mermelstein

There are so many books about the Holocaust now, some public libraries are refusing to obtain them any more. Furthermore, it is not often that we discover an actual survivor who has been able to record his own horrific experience as a published book. This author’s writing flows smoothly while describing how and where he and his family were rounded up and shipped to incredible horror. The descriptions are frighteningly presented with heart wrenching indisputable detail, often minute by minute. With knowledgeable precision, we learn how the family was separated, who succumbed and who survived. The information is so intense, it’s difficult to interrupt your reading as the tears flow.
It is also hard to believe that anyone could endure such insane cruelty. Apparently, Mermelstein survived only because his ordeal lasted one year: 1944 to 1945. Suffering starvation and Typhus any longer than that, he surely would have met his demise. After prolonged emancipation and rehabilitation he eventually came to live in California and raised a family. Interestingly, he subsequently sued a wartime Nazi revisionist Holocaust Denial organization for seventeen million, fifty thousand dollars.

The book is loaded with pertinent black and white photos documenting many of the maniacally frightening guilty characters as well as the innocent. Unfortunately, some of the pictures are of poor quality.

[Vivvi · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an American who lived in Hungary for 5 years, I am well aware of the horrors cast upon the Hungarian Jewish population during WWII. I have made two trips to Auschwitz-Birkenau and paid homage to the 500,000 Hungarian Jews killed within the confines of the camps. During one of my visits, I purchased this book from the book story at Auschwitz. I came highly recommended by the shop clerk but, for some reason, I never read it leaving it to collect dust on my bookshelf for years. I am now in the process of relocating back to the US and I found this book again. I picked it up and I couldn't put it down. This autobiography of Mel Mermelstein provides incredibly insight to the devastation on the Holocaust. His story is a true example of survival and the will of man. I was particularly astounded to learn about his life after liberation, as if it something (more often then not) left out of history books.

[Heidi Langford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating and hard book to read. I think it's very important that we understand what happened during the Holocaust, which really wasn't that long ago. I admire his strength and determination to fight for the story to be told.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this one many years ago in high school , stuck with me ever since ! Hopefully the world doesnt get like this again !All this happened in the age of telephones pre internet , i know almost archaic, a good example of why people need to be in control of thier goverment , this story saddens me !

[Arcel Dela · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 out of 5 great book

[Erica Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing story of the plight of the Hungarian Jews during the holocaust.