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Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: A Humorous – Insofar as That Is Possible – Novella from the Ghetto
Compassion, levity, and laughter can be found in the darkest of places—and even in the smallest of creatures. Set in 1943 Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, J. R. Pick’s novella Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals tells the story of Tony, a thirteen-year-old boy who is deported from Prague to the infamous Terezín ghetto for Jews—the horrific, overcrowded concentration camp where one in four prisoners died of starvation or disease, and a way station on the way to Auschwitz. But it is not the atrocities Tony experiences that make his tale remarkable. It is his ability to find comedy in the incomprehensible.
Tony suffers from tuberculosis, and, lying in his hospital bed one day, he decides to set up an animal welfare organization. Even though no animals are permitted in the camp, he is determined to find just one creature he can care for and protect—and his determination is contagious. A group of older boys, including Tony’s best friend, Ernie, aid him in his quest. Soon they’re joined by Tony’s mother—and her coterie of boyfriends. Eventually, they find Tony his pet: a mouse, which he names and carefully guards in a box hidden beneath his bed. But in the fall of 1944, the transports to Auschwitz begin.
As moving as it is irreverent, Pick’s novella draws on the two years he spent imprisoned in Terezín in his late teens. With cutting black humor, he shines a light on both the absurdities and injustices of the Nazi-run Jewish ghetto, using his literary artistry to portray in stunning shorthand an experience of the Holocaust that pure histories could never convey.
Tony suffers from tuberculosis, and, lying in his hospital bed one day, he decides to set up an animal welfare organization. Even though no animals are permitted in the camp, he is determined to find just one creature he can care for and protect—and his determination is contagious. A group of older boys, including Tony’s best friend, Ernie, aid him in his quest. Soon they’re joined by Tony’s mother—and her coterie of boyfriends. Eventually, they find Tony his pet: a mouse, which he names and carefully guards in a box hidden beneath his bed. But in the fall of 1944, the transports to Auschwitz begin.
As moving as it is irreverent, Pick’s novella draws on the two years he spent imprisoned in Terezín in his late teens. With cutting black humor, he shines a light on both the absurdities and injustices of the Nazi-run Jewish ghetto, using his literary artistry to portray in stunning shorthand an experience of the Holocaust that pure histories could never convey.
212 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
54 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 21, 2019
A darkly funny novella about a Jewish Czech boy in a ghetto. Avoid it if black humor is not your cup of tea.
4,5*
The translation is quite good but should have been better proofread.
4,5*
The translation is quite good but should have been better proofread.
April 16, 2018
My review of Jiří Robert Pick’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, translated by Alex Zucker, in LA Review of Books: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/l...
'TO WRITE A NOVEL that makes you laugh is a great skill; to write a novel that takes place in a ghetto and still makes you laugh is a true feat. Jiří Robert Pick’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals does that and more. On the one hand, it is a paean to the human character, which fights for survival and dignity in the face of certain death. On the other, it is the tender and surprisingly funny story of one boy in extraordinary circumstances.'
'TO WRITE A NOVEL that makes you laugh is a great skill; to write a novel that takes place in a ghetto and still makes you laugh is a true feat. Jiří Robert Pick’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals does that and more. On the one hand, it is a paean to the human character, which fights for survival and dignity in the face of certain death. On the other, it is the tender and surprisingly funny story of one boy in extraordinary circumstances.'
February 6, 2017
Książka Jiřiego Roberta Picka „Towarzystwo opieki nad zwierzętami” została wydana po czesku po raz pierwszy w roku 1969 roku. Autor przenosi nas do żydowskiego getta, na które patrzymy oczami głównego bohatera, czternastoletniego Toniego. Po części jest to książka autobiograficzna, gdyż Jiři Robert Pick, jako młody chłopiec spędził w getcie w Terezinie kilka lat.
Powieść ma podtytuł „Humorystyczna – jeśli to możliwe – opowieść z getta”, sugerujący lekką i żartobliwą lekturę. Humor tutaj wydawać się może nie na miejscu, a jednak tam, gdzie jeszcze tli się życie, okazji do żartu nie brakuje. Nawet, jeżeli ostatecznie jest to uśmiech przez łzy.
Brutalna rzeczywistość getta, zderzona została z pogodną, pełną humoru narracją, jakby do Toniego nie do końca docierał tragizm sytuacji, w jakiej się znalazł. Pomagają mu w tym jego „koledzy”, dorośli Żydzi, którzy przebywają w tym samym szpitalu w getcie. Być może przez wzgląd na młody wiek chłopca, o wielu sprawach mówią nie wprost, tym samym łagodząc okrutny obraz rzeczywistości w jego umyśle.
„Toni (…) Już się do tego przyzwyczaił. Są po prostu sprawy, których mając czternaście lat nie zrozumiesz, choćbyś nie wiem, jak chciał. Ale gdybyś nawet je zrozumiał, to zrozumiałbyś źle albo zrozumiał właściwie, ale i tak nic byś z tego nie miał, a więc lepiej było zadowolić się tym, że ich nie rozumiesz.”[1]
Rzeczywistość getta jest pełna absurdów. Jest szpital, w którym gruźlicę leczy się na niby, przepisy, które nie mają sensu, transporty, które powodują, że ludzie znikają, ale o których prawdziwym znaczeniu, Toniemu się nie opowiada. Potrzeba chronienia kogoś słabszego to walka o zachowanie człowieczeństwa w świecie, w którym ludzie są traktowani jak zwierzęta. „- To był fajny chłopak – powiedział Toni. – Nie tylko kuzyn, ale przyjaciel i kucharz. Codziennie dawał mi jeden knedel.
- Tak – pokiwał głową doktor Neugeboren – tak się w getcie okazuje przyjaźń. Dawał mu jeden knedel dziennie.”[2]
Toni również chce się kimś opiekować, ale któż może być słabszy od niego, aby takiej opieki wymagać? Zwierzęta. Toni zakłada więc w getcie towarzystwo opieki nad zwierzętami. Jakkolwiek absurdalny wydaje się ten pomysł, nie jest on bardziej bez sensu niż hitlerowskie zarządzenia.
„Mimo grozy, jaką budzą okoliczności dojrzewania Toniego, mimo strasznych warunków wchodzenia w życie nastolatka, mimo surowości w stosunkach między ludźmi (dorośli przeczuwają swój los), mimo drastyczności niektórych scen, przedstawionych zresztą z niezwykłym taktem, wyczuciem i oszczędnością środków wyrazu, jest to opowieść w jakiejś mierze pogodna - w fatalistyczny, melancholijny i rozczulający sposób, czasem zabawna, a przynajmniej skłaniająca do uśmiechu.”[3] – napisała w posłowiu tłumaczka, prof. dr hab. Zofia Tarajło-Lipowska, która zachowała w tłumaczeniu specyficzny klimat książki – czeskiego poczucia humoru wymieszanego z żydowskimi szmoncesami.
Chciałoby się powiedzieć po lekturze książki, że jest w niej i śmieszno, i straszno.
Polecam! Proza Picka to kawał dobrej, czeskiej literatury!
-----
[1] J.R. Pick, „Towarzystwo opieki nad zwierzętami. Humorystyczna – jeśli to możliwe – opowieść z getta w Terezinie”, tłum. Zofia Tarajło-Lipowska, wyd. Lech i Czech, Katowice 2015, s. 90
[2] tamże, s. 112-113
[3] tamże, s. 159
Powieść ma podtytuł „Humorystyczna – jeśli to możliwe – opowieść z getta”, sugerujący lekką i żartobliwą lekturę. Humor tutaj wydawać się może nie na miejscu, a jednak tam, gdzie jeszcze tli się życie, okazji do żartu nie brakuje. Nawet, jeżeli ostatecznie jest to uśmiech przez łzy.
Brutalna rzeczywistość getta, zderzona została z pogodną, pełną humoru narracją, jakby do Toniego nie do końca docierał tragizm sytuacji, w jakiej się znalazł. Pomagają mu w tym jego „koledzy”, dorośli Żydzi, którzy przebywają w tym samym szpitalu w getcie. Być może przez wzgląd na młody wiek chłopca, o wielu sprawach mówią nie wprost, tym samym łagodząc okrutny obraz rzeczywistości w jego umyśle.
„Toni (…) Już się do tego przyzwyczaił. Są po prostu sprawy, których mając czternaście lat nie zrozumiesz, choćbyś nie wiem, jak chciał. Ale gdybyś nawet je zrozumiał, to zrozumiałbyś źle albo zrozumiał właściwie, ale i tak nic byś z tego nie miał, a więc lepiej było zadowolić się tym, że ich nie rozumiesz.”[1]
Rzeczywistość getta jest pełna absurdów. Jest szpital, w którym gruźlicę leczy się na niby, przepisy, które nie mają sensu, transporty, które powodują, że ludzie znikają, ale o których prawdziwym znaczeniu, Toniemu się nie opowiada. Potrzeba chronienia kogoś słabszego to walka o zachowanie człowieczeństwa w świecie, w którym ludzie są traktowani jak zwierzęta. „- To był fajny chłopak – powiedział Toni. – Nie tylko kuzyn, ale przyjaciel i kucharz. Codziennie dawał mi jeden knedel.
- Tak – pokiwał głową doktor Neugeboren – tak się w getcie okazuje przyjaźń. Dawał mu jeden knedel dziennie.”[2]
Toni również chce się kimś opiekować, ale któż może być słabszy od niego, aby takiej opieki wymagać? Zwierzęta. Toni zakłada więc w getcie towarzystwo opieki nad zwierzętami. Jakkolwiek absurdalny wydaje się ten pomysł, nie jest on bardziej bez sensu niż hitlerowskie zarządzenia.
„Mimo grozy, jaką budzą okoliczności dojrzewania Toniego, mimo strasznych warunków wchodzenia w życie nastolatka, mimo surowości w stosunkach między ludźmi (dorośli przeczuwają swój los), mimo drastyczności niektórych scen, przedstawionych zresztą z niezwykłym taktem, wyczuciem i oszczędnością środków wyrazu, jest to opowieść w jakiejś mierze pogodna - w fatalistyczny, melancholijny i rozczulający sposób, czasem zabawna, a przynajmniej skłaniająca do uśmiechu.”[3] – napisała w posłowiu tłumaczka, prof. dr hab. Zofia Tarajło-Lipowska, która zachowała w tłumaczeniu specyficzny klimat książki – czeskiego poczucia humoru wymieszanego z żydowskimi szmoncesami.
Chciałoby się powiedzieć po lekturze książki, że jest w niej i śmieszno, i straszno.
Polecam! Proza Picka to kawał dobrej, czeskiej literatury!
-----
[1] J.R. Pick, „Towarzystwo opieki nad zwierzętami. Humorystyczna – jeśli to możliwe – opowieść z getta w Terezinie”, tłum. Zofia Tarajło-Lipowska, wyd. Lech i Czech, Katowice 2015, s. 90
[2] tamże, s. 112-113
[3] tamże, s. 159
April 24, 2023
Tony had, or has, tuberculosis, leaving him living in a hospital ward with several old men, all also formerly with tuberculosis. Among them there is the aging German communist Mr Brisch, the devout Mr Adamson, the cantankerous former trader Mr Glaser (always referred to as Mr Glaser and Sons) among others. Much as 13 year old Tony is distinct by age from his fellow residents of Room L315, and much as key elements of the story turn on the interrelationships between these men and this boy, the key factor is the hospital’s setting, in Terezín – or as it was known by the occupying Nazi forces, the Ghetto for Bohemia and Moravia.
A detention and labour camp, conditions in Terezín were terrible – at its peak 40,000 people squeezed into a walled village that now has a population of around 2500, and often referred to as the Big Fortress – across the river is the Small Fortress, an Austrian era fortress and during era of the Ghetto a prison for political dissidents – socialists and communists, and mainly non-Jewish. The paradox is that the ‘Big Fortress’ was also, in part, maintained by the Nazis as it ‘model’ camp and regularly opened to the Red Cross for ‘humanitarian review’. So, it had a functioning school, orchestra and other cultural institutions, hospital services, internal governing council (the Ältestenrat, the Jewish Council of Elders – Pick’s occasional use of explanatory footnotes explains some of these institutions) and despite the overcrowding was mildly better than most of the other detention and labour camps.
But this it Tony’s story, we don’t meet many of these institutions - but knowing of their existence is helpful – as is our discovery in one of the two short essays at the end that Pick was detained in Terezín as a teenager, about Tony’s age, about the same time as he was there. That Tony is 13 when we meet him allows Pick to retain a slightly naïve sense of the place – he is a little younger than his closest friends, a decade or more younger than many in his circle, and several decades younger than his ward mates. Yet he has a matter of fact eye, recognising that his mother’s ‘friendship’ with various men, changing when she falls out with them or they disappear on a transport, is essential for their survival: Tony is more an ingénue than naïve.
His sweetness, however, is an essential part of the story, as is his willingness to see the best in people – even, in the final chapters, his new room-mate, when finally removed from the hospital, who is a former Hitler Youth member discovered to have a Jewish grandfather. It is this sweetness that leads to his desire to form a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the core aspect of Pick’s satire, in part because there are no animals of note in the camp, and in part because the camp is for most nothing more than a staging point en route to transportation, in Terezín’s case, mainly to Auschwitz (a short section of that track remains, in the edge of the village – when I was last there, cared for, but unmarked as if locals unobtrusively remember; it is one of the village’s many things-that-cause-one-to-ponder).
This society leads to many discussions of which animals to care for – the pigeons, mice, and worms all get a look in. Yet the only animal anyone sees in the camp is the Commandant’s small dog, which suffers a most un-SPCA fate. Amid all this, Tony continues to care for a mouse as the human population dwindles around him, as his friends disappear, or die – the chapter where he gets himself assigned to the grave-digger contingent so he can bury his friend shot while trying to escape encapsulates the book’s poignant, absurdist, dark humour.
Amid all of this – death, genocide, sexual exploitation – this is bleakly funny satire, not as a laugh out loud comedy, but a novel of the ways we survive, the lightnesses we build in an effort to stay sane in adversity, the sardonic naivety we often need to get through the bad days and maintain hope for the good ones to come. And hope there is, partly through Tony’s naïve good-naturedness, partly through Pick’s tone, but also in his care to manage the bleakness – even in the poignantly tragic tone of the final chapter, of people so depleted by loss and loneliness, there remains hope of the end of the horror, in the closing image of artillery fire.
Tony’s SPCA is a sign of the humane in the midst of inhumanity, and a mark of Pick’s sharp critique: not surprisingly, he was a notable cultural figure during the Prague Spring. I’d passed over this book in Czech bookstores, leery of a concentration camp satire, and then it sat on a to-be-read shelf for three years, still leery, but eventually the endorsement of Karolinum Press’s Modern Czech Classics series won me over – I’d enjoyed all the others from the series I had read. Now, I lament that it took me so long to get to it.
This is a book that deserves to be better known for its wonder in making sense of the era through satire, wry humour, poignant interactions depicting compassionate friendships despite everything (there’s a heart-breaking moment when one of the old men ‘remembers’ another who he disliked but has been transported) all the while ever losing sight of the inhumane brutality of what is going on around them. Simply superb.
A detention and labour camp, conditions in Terezín were terrible – at its peak 40,000 people squeezed into a walled village that now has a population of around 2500, and often referred to as the Big Fortress – across the river is the Small Fortress, an Austrian era fortress and during era of the Ghetto a prison for political dissidents – socialists and communists, and mainly non-Jewish. The paradox is that the ‘Big Fortress’ was also, in part, maintained by the Nazis as it ‘model’ camp and regularly opened to the Red Cross for ‘humanitarian review’. So, it had a functioning school, orchestra and other cultural institutions, hospital services, internal governing council (the Ältestenrat, the Jewish Council of Elders – Pick’s occasional use of explanatory footnotes explains some of these institutions) and despite the overcrowding was mildly better than most of the other detention and labour camps.
But this it Tony’s story, we don’t meet many of these institutions - but knowing of their existence is helpful – as is our discovery in one of the two short essays at the end that Pick was detained in Terezín as a teenager, about Tony’s age, about the same time as he was there. That Tony is 13 when we meet him allows Pick to retain a slightly naïve sense of the place – he is a little younger than his closest friends, a decade or more younger than many in his circle, and several decades younger than his ward mates. Yet he has a matter of fact eye, recognising that his mother’s ‘friendship’ with various men, changing when she falls out with them or they disappear on a transport, is essential for their survival: Tony is more an ingénue than naïve.
His sweetness, however, is an essential part of the story, as is his willingness to see the best in people – even, in the final chapters, his new room-mate, when finally removed from the hospital, who is a former Hitler Youth member discovered to have a Jewish grandfather. It is this sweetness that leads to his desire to form a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the core aspect of Pick’s satire, in part because there are no animals of note in the camp, and in part because the camp is for most nothing more than a staging point en route to transportation, in Terezín’s case, mainly to Auschwitz (a short section of that track remains, in the edge of the village – when I was last there, cared for, but unmarked as if locals unobtrusively remember; it is one of the village’s many things-that-cause-one-to-ponder).
This society leads to many discussions of which animals to care for – the pigeons, mice, and worms all get a look in. Yet the only animal anyone sees in the camp is the Commandant’s small dog, which suffers a most un-SPCA fate. Amid all this, Tony continues to care for a mouse as the human population dwindles around him, as his friends disappear, or die – the chapter where he gets himself assigned to the grave-digger contingent so he can bury his friend shot while trying to escape encapsulates the book’s poignant, absurdist, dark humour.
Amid all of this – death, genocide, sexual exploitation – this is bleakly funny satire, not as a laugh out loud comedy, but a novel of the ways we survive, the lightnesses we build in an effort to stay sane in adversity, the sardonic naivety we often need to get through the bad days and maintain hope for the good ones to come. And hope there is, partly through Tony’s naïve good-naturedness, partly through Pick’s tone, but also in his care to manage the bleakness – even in the poignantly tragic tone of the final chapter, of people so depleted by loss and loneliness, there remains hope of the end of the horror, in the closing image of artillery fire.
Tony’s SPCA is a sign of the humane in the midst of inhumanity, and a mark of Pick’s sharp critique: not surprisingly, he was a notable cultural figure during the Prague Spring. I’d passed over this book in Czech bookstores, leery of a concentration camp satire, and then it sat on a to-be-read shelf for three years, still leery, but eventually the endorsement of Karolinum Press’s Modern Czech Classics series won me over – I’d enjoyed all the others from the series I had read. Now, I lament that it took me so long to get to it.
This is a book that deserves to be better known for its wonder in making sense of the era through satire, wry humour, poignant interactions depicting compassionate friendships despite everything (there’s a heart-breaking moment when one of the old men ‘remembers’ another who he disliked but has been transported) all the while ever losing sight of the inhumane brutality of what is going on around them. Simply superb.
August 15, 2020
Het leven in het getto van Theresienstadt door de ogen van de jonge Tony. Het kind, getroffen door tuberculosis, besluit vanaf de ziekenafdeling tot de oprichting van een stichting voor dierenwelzijn. Samen met de hulp (en soms weerzin) van vrienden en andere zieken gaat hij gedecideerd op zoek naar een geschikt dier om zich over te ontfermen, in een getto waar dieren helemaal niet zijn toegestaan. Intussen wordt de lezer meegenomen in het kampleven, waarbij juist de wat naïeve, soms zelfs speelse blik van een kind een zo scherpe en ijzingwekkende impressie nalaat van de onmenselijke omstandigheden en de ontmenselijkende gruweldaden.
May 25, 2021
Veľmi účinná zmes čierneho (miestami morbídneho) humoru s bolestivou realitou a mrazivými scénami, ktoré ako by sa diali niekde mimo čas i priestor.
June 25, 2019
I have sort of decided that I’m not doing books about WWII anymore. But this was a good one. Not just trying to make you cry because it can. I think the translation left something to be desired. It was kind of stilted and the characters seemed flat. But in general the book had a sort of “the little prince” vibe. Like very serious things but whimsical.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews