The Promise Hitler Kept (1945)

First Edition in English of
One of the First Holocaust Narratives,
The Story of a Polish Jew Attempting to
Escape Lwow During World War II

Szende, Stefan. The Promise Hitler Kept. London: Victor Gollancz, 1945.

Octavo. Hardcover. 1st Edition in English.

First edition in English of this harrowing tale about "The Last Jew Out of Poland," a man named Adolf Folkmann who fled from Lwow to Norway, barely escaping the Nazi's murder machine. "The promise was the extermination of the Jews. Here is the story of that accomplishment in Poland, not Warsaw this time, but Lwow. It is also the story of Adolf Folkmann [as told to Hungarian writer Stefan Szende], one of the few to escape--his immunity at first working as a salvage collector of Germans--his contact with a Ukranian which saved him once more--and finally, as liquidation became wholesale, his escape through the Underground to Norway as a Polish Aryan slave laborer--and from Norway to Sweden. A personal, practical sauve qui peut attitude colors this account of terrorization and escape. It is not a popular subject--but it is dramatic reading" (Kirkus). Originally published in Swedish as Den siste juden frän Poland. Book fine, dust jacket about-fine.