ONE OF THE EARLIEST WORK ON THE HUNGARIAN HOLOCAUST, WITH ELEVEN WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS
(HOLOCAUST) (GROSSMANN, Sándor, WEIL, Shraga) VIHAR, Béla, editor. Sárga Könyv. Adatok a Magyar Zsidóság Háborús Szenvedéseiböl. 1941-1945 [Yellow Book. Information about the Suffering of the Hungarian Jews during the War]. Budapest: (Hechaluc), [1945]. Quarto, original tan and orange stiff pictorial wrappers. $1200.
First edition of this pivotal early work on the Hungarian Holocaust, edited by Hungarian poet Béla Vihar, published in Budapest through the Hungarian Zionist Youth Movement, with eleven wood-cut engraved plates by award-winning artist Shraga Weil, in original pictorial wrappers.
Edited by Hungarian poet Béla Vihar, this is one of the earliest books published on the Hungarian Holocaust and its underground resistance movements. Featuring eleven powerful and moving woodcut-engraved illustrations by artist Shraga Weil, this important work was published in Budapest by Sandor (Alexander) Grossman of the Hungarian Zionist Youth Movement. During the war Grossmann worked at the legendary "Glass House," which housed the department of emigration of the Swiss consulate and became a refuge for Jews. At war's end he was a chief figure in the JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) before departing for Austria and Israel, and finally settling in Switzerland. Artist Shraga Weil studied in Prague and Paris before becoming active in the Zionist underground movement in Budapest, where he forged documents in the "Üvegház." At war's end he sailed for Palestine on an illegal immigrant ship and became a member of Kibbutz Haogen. An award-winning painter and graphic artist, Weil created the doors of the main entrance to the Knesset building and the President's residence in Jerusalem, and painted the wooden panels in the Israeli hall at the Kennedy Center. Text in Hungarian. Bookplate.
Text and plates fine, lightest edge-wear, minor soiling to fragile original wrappers. A most scarce near-fine copy.