One Who Came Back: The Diary of a Jewish Survivor

by Josef Katz

Literary Nonfiction. Jewish Studies. Memoir. Translated from the German by Hilda Reach and Merrill Leffler. ONE WHO CAME BACK is Josef Katz's account of his four years of daily terror in Riga, Kaiserwald, Stutthof and numbers of smaller Nazi labor camps. Liberated in 1945, he began writing his diary in pencil in Germany in 1946, finishing it a year later in New York where he arrived with his wife Irene, also a survivor of Riga. "Every incident, every experience, every horror is exactly as it occurred," Katz wrote in his original German introduction. The diary remained in a drawer until the Herzl Press published the book in 1973 in an English translation by Hilda Reach; it was published in German in 1976. A number historians such as Martin Gilbert ( The The Jewish Tragedy ) and Leni Yahil ( The Holocaust ) have referred to the book's significance as a primary source for understanding what slave laborers endured in the Nazi camps. This edition adds a map and foreword by Herman Taube, author of 20 books of fiction and poetry.

Genres: History

231 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Linda Comer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I purchased this at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. While there, the widow of the survivor signed my book. I was honored to be in her presence. The book was extremely haunting with stories of horrific torture and survival. This is definitely for the mature reader.

[Mary Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping, horrifying and frighteningly real. The story of one man's survival in the concentration camps of Latvia during WWII. How does one live in a world gone mad? What keeps a man going when humanity has totally lost it's way? Honest, spare and deeply revealing. A tremendous addition to the Holocaust story. May we never forget...

[Elliot Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read. It is truly phenomenal how Mr Katz survived the ordeal of being a Jewish person under Nazi rule. His tale takes us from Latvia to Germany. He encounters great fortune and immense suffering. His book is a true account of cruelty, suffering and glimmers of kindness that existed during the Nazi's persecution of the Jews.