In the autumn of 1990, Leon X. Perachias’ book was published in Thessaloniki, in a private edition “Mazal: Memories of the Killing Fields”.
The author, who with this book is presented for the first time in our letters, narrates in the first person his tragic adventure in the German concentration camps of Birgenau and Auschwitz, from the summer of 1942 to January 1945.
The author describes with literary force and a strongly dramatic tone not only his individual case, but at the same time the drama of his fellow prisoners in the camps, the horror of executions, hunger, forced labor and the degradation of every human being, to finally conclude that he was saved thanks to his luck (mazal in Hebrew means luck) escaping from the hands of the anthropomorphic monsters of the Nazis.
(Dinos Christianopoulos, from the introduction on the back cover of the book)
LEON CH. PERACHIA – 118745, MAZAL.
Memories of the extermination camps (1943-1945)
Thessaloniki 1990
It has been almost 35 years since this shocking book was published. I was still almost a child
and I went up to the attic of the MOLCHO bookstore, where the books on this subject were
measured. Shortly before, Berrys Nahmia’s Cry for Tomorrow was released and around this time
the memoirs of Henry of Seville. There was silence about the Holocaust. Stone years. The hostages
they didn’t talk, but few wanted to listen either. Not long ago, the collection with
testimonies, edited by Miriam Novitz: The Passage of the Barbarians, under whose encouragement
due to the recording of Perachias.
Thus, Leon Perachias’ MAZAL was an editorial venture, since it was not launched by a large publisher, but relied on the courage of people of high moral stature: the author, that is, with the help of Dinos Christianopoulos and Karolos Cizek.
The book was sensational – and an editorial gem at the same time. These books are not published today. In the years that have passed, 35 – not a few – the book has sold out and I have grown old…
Seeing today the late and intense interest in Judaism and the Shoah, I remain with ambivalent feelings and with great reservations. And this is because I feel that some people use Judaism as a vehicle for promotion and advancement. “The Jew sells.” But anti-Semitism is lurking and many of those who caress us today will not know us tomorrow. Signs of the times…
I was very happy to learn that this great book by Leon H. Perachias, Mazal,
will be reissued. And the reissue is due to his altruism and moral integrity
friend Tryfon M. Kalamitsi. Mazal in Hebrew means luck, destiny. So waiting for her
reissue, I’m sure the book will do well. Mazal Tov!!!
– Thrasyvoulos Papastratis, Advocate of the Supreme Court,
MSC, MA Public History