Op 27 januari 1945 werd concentratie- en vernietigingskamp Auschwitz bevrijd. Daar zijn in vijf jaar tijd minstens 1,1 miljoen mensen mannen, vrouwen, kinderen, merendeels Joden. De meeste ooggetuigen van die moord zijn inmiddels overleden. Maar de geschiedenis van de Holocaust mag niet worden vergeten. Enkele ooggetuigenverslagen staan ons ter beschikking.
Arnon Grunberg koos de veelzeggendste verhalen uit Bij ons in Auschwitz, zijn bloemlezing van internationale kampliteratuur, en schreef er een inleiding bij. De lezer volgt de gedeporteerde van de aankomst in het kamp tot in de gaskamer, van de dwangarbeid tot de bevrijding, en er wordt inzicht geboden in de schaamte van hen die het was vergund te overleven.
Arnon Yasha Yves (Arnon) Grunberg is a Dutch writer. Some of his books were written using the heteronym Marek van der Jagt.
In 1989 Grunberg made his acting debut in Maria's Cunt (de Kut van Maria); a short film by Dutch enfant terrible filmmaker Cyrus Frisch.
Grunberg made his literary debut in 1994 with the novel Blauwe maandagen (Blue Mondays), which won the Dutch prize for the best debut novel that year. In 2000, under the heteronym Marek van der Jagt, he won the best debut prize again for his novel De geschiedenis van mijn kaalheid (The History of My Baldness).
Grunberg publishes novels about once a year but also writes columns and essays in a wide variety of Dutch and international newspapers and magazines. He does not restrict himself only to the written media, but also reads a story for the radio every week and for some time he was host of a cultural television program. He also writes a blog for the literary Internet magazine Words Without Borders and his own site ArnonGrunberg.com.
His novel Tirza won the Dutch Golden Owl Prize for Literature and the Libris Prize.[1] His books have been translated into many languages, including English, German, Japanese and Georgian.
From 2006 Grunberg wrote various journalistic reports, for example about working undercover in a Bavarian hotel and his visit to Guantánamo Bay. Also he visited the Dutch troops in Afghanistan and the US Army in Iraq. In 2009 these reports were collected in the book Chambermaids and Soldiers.