Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust

Bernard Gotfryd was born in Radom, Poland. During World War II he was involved with the Polish underground until being imprisoned by the Nazis. He spent time in six concentration camps before his liberation from Gusen II in May of 1945. Two years later Gotfryd emigrated to the United States, where he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps before joining the staff of Newsweek in 1957. He was moved to begin recording his Holocaust memories when he photographed the Pope's visit to Poland in 1983-Gotfryd's first visit to Poland in forty years. Currently he divides his time between writing and photography at his home in Forest Hills, New York.

From time to time one comes across a book of true tales that not only has the power to be painfully moving, but also terribly informing about what it was like to survive the Holocaust. Bernard Gotfryd, in his true tales, has given us such a book. Dimensions Thirty autobiographical stories whose banal details and well-placed silences haunt long after the book is finished. -- Joan Baum The Independent Written with integrity and honesty, Anton helps us to recognize human strength and precariousness, and the complexity of human existence. The book rouses our responsibility and makes us face people and history through the specific voices Gotfryd lets us hear, and the specific faces and places he lets us see. -- Yasuhiro Tae Bulletin of the Center for Holocaust Studies [A] fine collection of 30 true stories, some nostalgic, others heartbreaking, all of them moving. Jewish Book World

• ForewordPrefaceChapter 1. Theft of a TableChapter 2. The Circus Comes to TownChapter 3. The StuttererChapter 4. The Music TeacherChapter 5. The Wedding PictureChapter 6. The ViolinChapter 6. My DebutChapter 7. The Fountain PenChapter 8. Mr. G.Chapter 9. MashaChapter 10. A Chicken for the HolidaysChapter 11. AlexandraChapter 12. KurtChapter 13. Helmut ReinerChapter 14. The Last MorningChapter 15. Anton the Dove FancierChapter 16. On GuiltChapter 17. Three EggsChapter 18. The ExecutionChapter 19. My Brother's FriendChapter 20. Hans Bürger, #15252Chapter 21. The Last CampChapter 22. An Encounter in LinzChapter 23. ReunionsChapter 24. IngeChapter 25. America at LastChapter 26. Old FriendsChapter 27. Walking in the Footsteps of My ChildhoodChapter 28. On a Rainy NightChapter 29. On Memory