Nine Suitcases: A Memoir

Bela Zsolt produced one of the finest Holocaust memoirs I have ever read. Like Primo Levi, he was a keen observer. He provides the reader with a magnificently detailed account of his thoughts and experiences as he is caught up in the horrors of the Nazi era. Moreover, he presents us with no stereotypes. You won't find unadulterated two-dimensional representations of good or evil in his narrative. These are fully developed human beings, complex, conflicted, and anguished. The result is a breathtaking view of the horrors mankind inflicts on itself in the worst of times.

Written almost immediately following the end of WWII, there was no distance between M. Zsolt and his experiences. Originally published as articles in a magazine, the force of the writing really slams into the reader from the beginning. M. Zsolt picks up his story in 1944 in the Nagyvarad ghetto. At that time, he had already been a slave ('forced labourer') for the Hugarian forces allied with the Nazis in the Ukraine, survived, freed, and then thrown into prison as a political prisoner. He is already in his late 40s, and a veteran of WWI. What struck me in this memoir is the similarity of M. Zsolt's thinking about the horrors he endures and the writings of M. Wiesel. Both authors come to the conclusion that there are no words to communicate the experience, yet both realize they must attempt to do so. I'm thankful that this memoir is now available in English (and the translator was actually with M. Zsolt in Bergen-Belsen as a boy).