[HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR NARRATIVE]. I Cannot Forgive

London: Sidgwick & Jackson and Anthony Gibbs & Phillips, 1964. First Edition. Very good. 8vo. 278 pp. Original cloth, dust-jacket with 1/4" tear at top of front panel which is lightly faded, slight wear to dust-jacket at head and tail. In mylar sleeve. HAUNTING AND UNIMAGINABLY HARROWING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF A SLOVAKIAN TEENAGER WHO WAS SENT TO AUSCHWITZ AND EVENTUALLY ESCAPED, PURSUED RELENTLESSLY FOR 81 MILES ACROSS NAZI-OCCUPIED POLAND BY HUNDREDS OF SOLDIERS.

The escape of Rudi Vrba and Alred Wetzler from the Auschwitz concentration camp is an astonishing feat of courage and endurance. The present volume contains Vrba's fullest account of their incomprehensible sufferings at the camp; the "impossible" odds of surviving any attempt at escaping from it; the terror and agony they endured while fleeing; their meticulously detailed record -- accompanied by critical documentation -- of the mechanized mass slaughter at the camp, along with names of the guilty, exact dates, facts and figures too awful to consider. Controversy about the delayed distribution of the so-called Vrba-Wetzler Report by Hungarian Jewish leaders in 1944 continues to the present day, but there is no doubt that the heroic efforts of these two fearless escapees saved thousands of innocent men, women and children from extermination.

"I Cannot Forgive" is an exceedingly difficult book to read, but the information herein MUST BE SAVED. We have been looking for a copy of the first edition in museum-quality condition for a long time and have at last found one -- this one.

Cataloguer's note: Every word of "I Cannot Forgive" was read out loud to every student in Seattle's Roosevelt High School world history course by teacher William Moylen (1927-2006). "Mr. Moylen" (as we knew him) reserved the last 15 minutes for reading "I Cannot Forgive" which he did for YEARS in front of thousands of students. Be assured that none of us can or will forget that experience.