Originally published in weekly instalments, Nine Suitcases is the Hungarian writer Bela Zsolt`s harrowing memoir of his experiences in the ghetto of Nagyvarad & as a forced labourer in the Ukraine. Written with exceptional freshness & a devastating blend of angry despair & cool detachment, Zsolt
- one of the earliest writers on the Holocaust
- provides not only a rare insight into Hungarian fascism, but a shocking exposure of the cruelty, indifference, selfishness, cowardice & betrayal of which human beings
- the victims no less than the perpetrators
- are capable in extreme circumstances. Interspersed with moments of grotesque farce, grim irony & occasional memories of human kindness, Zsolt`s nightmarish but meticulously realistic chronicle of smaller & larger crimes against humanity is as riveting as it is horrifying.