The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow

Prelude to Doom

Edited by Raul Hilberg; Stanislaw Staron and Josef Kermisz

Adam Czerniakow was a Polish Jew who killed himself on July 23, 1942—on the face of it not an uncommon occurrence in those times. But there is more to the story than the tragic death of one man among so many millions. Czerniakow was for almost three years the chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat—a Jew, devoted to his people, who served as the Nazi-sponsored “mayor” of the Warsaw Ghetto. His personal dealings with the German authorities bring to this daily record of events a depth of knowledge, accuracy of detail, and panorama of view that was possible to no other participant in the epic prelude to the final doom of the largest captive Jewish community in Eastern Europe. This secret journal is not only the testimony of an unbearable personal burden but the documentary of the Ghetto’s terminal agony. It is the most important diary to emerge from the Holocaust.

Ivan R. Dee

Pages: 444 • Trim: 5½ x 8½

978-1-56663-230-0 • Paperback • March 1999 • $22.50 • (£16.99)

Series: Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Subjects: History / Jewish, Biography & Autobiography / Historical, History / General, History / Europe / General, History / World

The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow

Prelude to Doom

Paperback

Summary
Summary

Adam Czerniakow was a Polish Jew who killed himself on July 23, 1942—on the face of it not an uncommon occurrence in those times. But there is more to the story than the tragic death of one man among so many millions. Czerniakow was for almost three years the chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat—a Jew, devoted to his people, who served as the Nazi-sponsored “mayor” of the Warsaw Ghetto. His personal dealings with the German authorities bring to this daily record of events a depth of knowledge, accuracy of detail, and panorama of view that was possible to no other participant in the epic prelude to the final doom of the largest captive Jewish community in Eastern Europe. This secret journal is not only the testimony of an unbearable personal burden but the documentary of the Ghetto’s terminal agony. It is the most important diary to emerge from the Holocaust.

Details
Details

Ivan R. Dee

Pages: 444 • Trim: 5½ x 8½

978-1-56663-230-0 • Paperback • March 1999 • $22.50 • (£16.99)

Series: Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Subjects: History / Jewish, Biography & Autobiography / Historical, History / General, History / Europe / General, History / World

Author
Author

Raul Hilberg is the author of The Destruction of the European Jews and the foremost historian of the Holocaust. Stanislaw Staron, now deceased, taught political science at the University of Vermont. Josef Kermisz was director of archives at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Reviews
Reviews

A major event!
— Herman Wouk

A nightmare Alice-in-Wonderland...intensely dramatic in the aggregate for all the matter-of-factness of individual entries...The Diary of Adam Czerniakow makes a deep, deep impression.
— Peter Osnos; The Review of Higher Education

Meticulously factual and nonetheless moving.
— The New Yorker

Enormously evocative.
— Dorothy Rabinowitz; The Wall Street Journal

Without parallel.
— Isaiah Trunk, author of Judenrat

A tale of Kafaesque horror.
— Houston Chronicle

An astonishing record of desperate adaptation and resilient will.
— The New Leader

Features
Features

An indispensable record from the Holocaust

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