1st Edition

Am I A Murderer? Testament Of A Jewish Ghetto Policeman

By Calel Perechodnik Copyright 1996
288 Pages
by Routledge

288 Pages
by Routledge

288 Pages
by Routledge

This book presents the chronicles of the life of a young Polish Jew, Calel Perechodnik, under the Nazis, including the tragedy of his decision to become a ghetto policeman in a small town near Warsaw in the vain hope of protecting himself and his family from the Nazis.

1. War 2. The Aktion 3. After the Aktion 4. The Camp 5. Warsaw 6. Conclusion

Biography

Calel Perechodnik In this moving memoir, a young Polish Jew chronicles his life under the Nazis. In the vain hope of protecting himself and his family, Calel Perechodnik made the wrenching decision to become a ghetto policeman in a small town near Warsaw. The true tragedy of his choice becomes clear when during the Aktion he must witness his own wife and child forced to board a train to the Treblinka extermination camp. Filled with loathing for the Germans, the Poles, his Jewish brethren, and himself, Perechodnik fled the ghetto to shelter with a Polish woman in Warsaw. In the course of 105 terror-filled days in hiding, he poured out his poignant story. Shortly before his death in 1944, he entrusted the precious diary to a Polish friend. The document was eventually deposited in the Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem. Left nearly forgotten for half a century, it was finally published in Poland in 1993.