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Children of the Holocaust #3
Diamonds of the Night
Now a new light is cast across the human landscape of the greatest atrocity in history. Not the light of despair, but rather a vision of hope—of diamonds in the night of the Holocaust.
What commands attention are the insights of people on the verge of destruction, some of whom survived like the author himself, most of whom did not. This book takes the form of fiction, but, as Professor Lawrence Langer has written, “historical reality looms over Lustig’s fictional narrative like a leaden cloud, and no one can fail to feel its threat.”
The threat is to our own preconceptions of the Holocaust, to our aversion to facing a terrible event which has touched the lives of so many Americans.
The threat is to the current media induced vision of the Holocaust as soap opera.
The threat is above all to our fear of facing the reality of death while surviving in the ground of hope.
This is a startling and unsettling book because Lustig demonstrates that hope and life and meaning can survive against the most overwhelming odds.
What commands attention are the insights of people on the verge of destruction, some of whom survived like the author himself, most of whom did not. This book takes the form of fiction, but, as Professor Lawrence Langer has written, “historical reality looms over Lustig’s fictional narrative like a leaden cloud, and no one can fail to feel its threat.”
The threat is to our own preconceptions of the Holocaust, to our aversion to facing a terrible event which has touched the lives of so many Americans.
The threat is to the current media induced vision of the Holocaust as soap opera.
The threat is above all to our fear of facing the reality of death while surviving in the ground of hope.
This is a startling and unsettling book because Lustig demonstrates that hope and life and meaning can survive against the most overwhelming odds.
234 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1958
10 people are currently reading
159 people want to read
About the author
Arnošt Lustig
71 books76 followersArnošt Lustig (born 21 December 1926 in Prague) is a renowned Czech Jewish author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays whose works have often involved the Holocaust.
As a Jewish boy in Czechoslovakia during World War II, he was sent in 1942 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, from where he was later transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, followed by time in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1945, he escaped from a train carrying him to the Dachau concentration camp when the engine was mistakenly destroyed by an American fighter-bomber. He returned to Prague in time to take part in the May 1945 anti-Nazi uprising.
After the war, he studied journalism at Charles University in Prague and then worked for a number of years at Radio Prague. He worked as a journalist in Israel at the time of its War of Independence where he met his future wife, who at the time was a volunteer with the Haganah. He was one of the major critics of the Communist regime in June 1967 at the 4th Writers Conference, and gave up his membership in the Communist Party after the 1967 Middle East war, to protest his government's breaking of relations with Israel. However, following the Soviet-led invasion that ended the Prague Spring in 1968, he left the country, first to Israel, then Yugoslavia and later in 1970 to the United States. After the fall of eastern European communism in 1989, he divided his time between Prague and Washington DC, where he continued to teach at the American University. After his retirement from the American University in 2003, he became a full-time resident of Prague. He was given an apartment in the Prague Castle by then President Václav Havel and honored for his contributions to Czech culture on his 80th birthday in 2006. In 2008, Lustig became the eighth recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize. [1]
Lustig is married to the former Vera Weislitzová (1927), daughter of a furniture maker from Ostrava who was also imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp. Unlike her parents, she was not deported to Auschwitz. She wrote of her family's fate during the Holocaust in the collection of poems entitled "Daughter of Olga and Leo." They have two children, Josef (1950) and Eva (1956).
His most renowned books are A Prayer For Katerina Horowitzowa (published and nominated for a National book award in 1974), Dita Saxová (1979), Night and Hope (1985), and Lovely Green Eyes (2004). Dita Saxová and Night and Hope have been filmed.
As a Jewish boy in Czechoslovakia during World War II, he was sent in 1942 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, from where he was later transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, followed by time in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1945, he escaped from a train carrying him to the Dachau concentration camp when the engine was mistakenly destroyed by an American fighter-bomber. He returned to Prague in time to take part in the May 1945 anti-Nazi uprising.
After the war, he studied journalism at Charles University in Prague and then worked for a number of years at Radio Prague. He worked as a journalist in Israel at the time of its War of Independence where he met his future wife, who at the time was a volunteer with the Haganah. He was one of the major critics of the Communist regime in June 1967 at the 4th Writers Conference, and gave up his membership in the Communist Party after the 1967 Middle East war, to protest his government's breaking of relations with Israel. However, following the Soviet-led invasion that ended the Prague Spring in 1968, he left the country, first to Israel, then Yugoslavia and later in 1970 to the United States. After the fall of eastern European communism in 1989, he divided his time between Prague and Washington DC, where he continued to teach at the American University. After his retirement from the American University in 2003, he became a full-time resident of Prague. He was given an apartment in the Prague Castle by then President Václav Havel and honored for his contributions to Czech culture on his 80th birthday in 2006. In 2008, Lustig became the eighth recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize. [1]
Lustig is married to the former Vera Weislitzová (1927), daughter of a furniture maker from Ostrava who was also imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp. Unlike her parents, she was not deported to Auschwitz. She wrote of her family's fate during the Holocaust in the collection of poems entitled "Daughter of Olga and Leo." They have two children, Josef (1950) and Eva (1956).
His most renowned books are A Prayer For Katerina Horowitzowa (published and nominated for a National book award in 1974), Dita Saxová (1979), Night and Hope (1985), and Lovely Green Eyes (2004). Dita Saxová and Night and Hope have been filmed.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 26, 2024
Lustig's work presents a stark, harrowing portrait of concentration camp and ghetto existence. His characters are trapped, not by barbed wire alone, but by the crushing weight of their circumstances. Survival becomes the sole focus, eclipsing thoughts of escape. A single guard wields absolute power over hundreds, making fathers fight sons until one dies, shooting swimmers in the legs so they would drown, refusing hoes for digging duty, and countless other horrors, a chilling display of the camp's oppressive order. The war's end brings a shift, yet not liberation. Fear, once a constant companion, lingers, a phantom tormentor. The survivors grapple with a new reality, devoid of the familiar enemy, but haunted by the past.
Lustig's storytelling is direct, cinematic. He plunges the reader into the heart of the action, be it the inferno of the Warsaw ghetto or the numbing routine of camp life. His characters, ordinary people thrust into extraordinary horror, reveal their fragility. Death is a constant presence, as close as a breath. Yet, it is not the physicality of dying that shocks, but the indifference to it. Life becomes defined by its precariousness, a knife-edge existence where fear is the sole bulwark against oblivion.
In these tales, the nameless and faceless victims are given voice. Lustig preserves their memory, etching their suffering into history. Nature, indifferent and persistent, intrudes upon these human-made hellscapes, a stark contrast to the manufactured evil. These stories are not merely accounts of survival; they are a haunting exploration of the individual tested to their limits.
Lustig's storytelling is direct, cinematic. He plunges the reader into the heart of the action, be it the inferno of the Warsaw ghetto or the numbing routine of camp life. His characters, ordinary people thrust into extraordinary horror, reveal their fragility. Death is a constant presence, as close as a breath. Yet, it is not the physicality of dying that shocks, but the indifference to it. Life becomes defined by its precariousness, a knife-edge existence where fear is the sole bulwark against oblivion.
In these tales, the nameless and faceless victims are given voice. Lustig preserves their memory, etching their suffering into history. Nature, indifferent and persistent, intrudes upon these human-made hellscapes, a stark contrast to the manufactured evil. These stories are not merely accounts of survival; they are a haunting exploration of the individual tested to their limits.
June 20, 2019
Jazyk knihy je čitelný snadno, avšak měla jsem problém v orientaci postav, první povídky se daly, ale
Chlapec u okna a Černý lev pro mě byly matoucí, ztrácela jsem se v postavách, v ději. Asi nejvíc mě
zasáhla hned první povídka s Ervínem, protože ukazuje dětského hrdinu v nelehké životní situaci, pro
nás nepředstavitelné mizérii lodžského ghetta, který ovšem pociťuje odpor k rodičům stejně jako to
puberťáci prostě mají. Ovšem kdoví, jestli by se takto Ervín projevil, kdyby nebyla válka a on netrpěl,
stejně jako jeho rodina. Zároveň zde vnímám důrazně motiv svědomí, protože to Ervína neopouští,
dokonce kvůli tomu není schopen sníst ani jídlo, které Čiky vyměnil za kalhoty, které Ervín ukradl
svému mrtvému otci. Dále potom povídka Bílý, která staví do kontrastu dětskou nevinnou lásku a
utrpení perzekuce Židů.
Fascinuje mě, jak dokáže Lustig pracovat s neurčitým vyjádřením, právě třeba jak mluví o smrti,
kterou většinou nepopisuje přímo.
Chlapec u okna a Černý lev pro mě byly matoucí, ztrácela jsem se v postavách, v ději. Asi nejvíc mě
zasáhla hned první povídka s Ervínem, protože ukazuje dětského hrdinu v nelehké životní situaci, pro
nás nepředstavitelné mizérii lodžského ghetta, který ovšem pociťuje odpor k rodičům stejně jako to
puberťáci prostě mají. Ovšem kdoví, jestli by se takto Ervín projevil, kdyby nebyla válka a on netrpěl,
stejně jako jeho rodina. Zároveň zde vnímám důrazně motiv svědomí, protože to Ervína neopouští,
dokonce kvůli tomu není schopen sníst ani jídlo, které Čiky vyměnil za kalhoty, které Ervín ukradl
svému mrtvému otci. Dále potom povídka Bílý, která staví do kontrastu dětskou nevinnou lásku a
utrpení perzekuce Židů.
Fascinuje mě, jak dokáže Lustig pracovat s neurčitým vyjádřením, právě třeba jak mluví o smrti,
kterou většinou nepopisuje přímo.
March 28, 2011
This was very disturbing true stories of young Holocaust survivors. Well worth your time if you are able to read material like this!
September 2, 2012
As much as I like Lustig, this wasn't the book I was waiting for...
June 17, 2025
Od autora jsem v minulosti četl knihu MODLITBA PRO KATEŘINU HOROVITZOVOU, která se mi líbila. Po mnoha letech jsem se rozhodl pustit do další autorovy knihy a zvolil jsem povídkovou knihu DÉMANTY NOCI.
Arnošt Lustig prošel Terezínem, uprchl z transportu smrti, zúčastnil se Pražského povstání. Od r. 1948 zpravodajem v Izraeli, od konce 60. let žil v USA.
Démanty noci je povídková kniha, ve které se vyskytují válečné povídky. Celkově se v této knize vyskytuje 9 povídek – Sousto, Druhé kolo, Bílý, Starci a smrt, Začátek a konec, Michael a druhý s dýkou, Tma nemá stín, Chlapec u okna, Černý lev.
Myslím si, že o povídce Sousto jsme se učili na základní škole, vybavuje se mi to v paměti a při četbě této povídky mě docela mrazilo. Nedovedu si představit, že bych podstoupil to, co hlavní hrdina. Když je válka, tak se musí člověk překonat, aby sobě zachránil život a také své rodině.
Povídka Tma nemá stín se mi líbila, i když hlavní hrdinové se chovali podivně. Je to nejdelší povídka z této knihy.
Celkově se povídky četly dobře. Časem si přečtu další autorovy knihy.
Arnošt Lustig prošel Terezínem, uprchl z transportu smrti, zúčastnil se Pražského povstání. Od r. 1948 zpravodajem v Izraeli, od konce 60. let žil v USA.
Démanty noci je povídková kniha, ve které se vyskytují válečné povídky. Celkově se v této knize vyskytuje 9 povídek – Sousto, Druhé kolo, Bílý, Starci a smrt, Začátek a konec, Michael a druhý s dýkou, Tma nemá stín, Chlapec u okna, Černý lev.
Myslím si, že o povídce Sousto jsme se učili na základní škole, vybavuje se mi to v paměti a při četbě této povídky mě docela mrazilo. Nedovedu si představit, že bych podstoupil to, co hlavní hrdina. Když je válka, tak se musí člověk překonat, aby sobě zachránil život a také své rodině.
Povídka Tma nemá stín se mi líbila, i když hlavní hrdinové se chovali podivně. Je to nejdelší povídka z této knihy.
Celkově se povídky četly dobře. Časem si přečtu další autorovy knihy.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews