Mazo Publishers announces the publication of a new book, Chestnut
Roulette, by Jan Kot.
This story is the special saga of a Jewish youth from Lvov who outwits
the Nazis and the Luftwaffe during WWII. It is truly a lottery for life.
The author, who lives today in Israel, remembers and documents in
Chestnut Roulette, the extermination, the wish to revolt, and the
resourcefulness of the "Kashtans" in the midst of the Nazi inferno. The
Kashtans (Polish for Chestnut) were a group of young men who grouped
together to remain alive.
Kot tells us from a different approach, about the Gentiles. These are
the non-Jews who helped him stay alive. He presents in this true story
the fact that "not all of them were against us." Kot does not permit
prejudices or blind hatred to possess him.
Amongst all the amazing things that Kot did to survive, he even found
himself as a member of the German Air Force.
Here is how Kot describes his emotion-filled story:
In the first days when the swastika flew over my city of Lvov, I dreamt
of describing and transmitting my torments, as a fraction of the pain of
many. During the Holocaust I was infrequently, and in exceptional
moments of grace, able to write down a few words. In recent years these
jottings together with a few documents and photographs, creased or
torn enabled me to reconstruct those events and their accompanying
disillusionment, more difficult to heal than physical illness. Let me
point out straight away that in my writing I have not left out the
moments in which my spirit or that of my friends sought refuge in the
beauty of nature, in love or in jokes. All of these represented,
perhaps, a kind of self-healing and made it possible to preserve sanity.
If in the third millennium my long-time dream has been fulfilled, that
is to say that I have been able to overcome my frailties and
deficiencies and my ability to express myself in writing has increased,
this is a result of the encouragement of people who have heard my story
or read passages which I wrote, among them Dr. Nili Keren and Professor
Shevah Weiss.
In my writing I am fulfilling an obligation to the murdered and to the
heroes, and I feel certain that they, respected and dear to me,
somewhere in the heavens, will understand my desire to present a
balanced picture. I have also fulfilled an obligation to those who lived
with a borrowed identity, described in the language of those who work in
code "Kasztan" ("Kashtan" Polish for chestnut) who with ruse and
resourcefulness fought for their lives. Many of them did not have the
good fortune to be saved; their struggle and their suffering remain
unknown. In my story, personal and true, I hope to decode, if only a
little, their "black box".
Here are abridged comments about Jan Kot and Chestnut Roulette:
Professor Shevah Weiss, Former Chairman of the Council of Yad Vashem,
and Israel's Ambassador to Poland: "Jan Kot is counted among that group
of Holocaust survivors that still, in the days of darkness and
obscurity, there was kindled in their hearts the aspiration: to remember
and to remind
"
Professor Charlotte Vardi University of Haifa, Professor of Comparative
Literature and Holocaust Author: "Chestnut Roulette describes an
odyssey, not a product of fantasy, of young men during World War II. It
is emotional and will draw the reader to wonder how they managed to
survive their adventures. Jan Kot's prose stands out for an honest
presentation."
Soft Cover, 450 pages, $22.95
ISBN: 978-965-7344-39-2
Published by Mazo Publishers
Publisher Contact: Sol Lee: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Distributed by: Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble
Link to the web page for this book:
http://www.mazopublishers.com/chestnut%20roulette.html
Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author
and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL)
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