“Can the Dead Weep for the Dead”? Zalmen Gradowski and the Theology of the Shoah

On October 7, 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz obtained explosives and rebelled against their Nazi murderers. It was a desperate yet brave uprising that resulted in the death of more than 400 prisoners by day’s end, including Zalmen Gradowski, the author of The Last Consolation Vanished: The Testimony of a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz.

Written in Yiddish and buried in the ashes near Crematorium III, Gradowski’s testimony documented the horrors of being a Jewish prisoner with the unthinkable task of ushering other Jewish deportees into the gas chambers, removing their bodies, salvaging any valuables, transporting their bodies to the crematoria, and destroying all evidence of their murders.

Now, for the first time, Gradkowski’s memoir has been completely translated into English. Join us for a powerful presentation and discussion about the life and work of Gradowski with the book’s co-editor, Arnold Davidson. 

Davidson is Mandel School Distinguished Professor of Humanities at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He will argue that Gradowski’s manuscripts are not only an invaluable historical document and a literary masterpiece; Gradowski also raises theological questions that are as relevant today as they were in 1944, and Davidson will focus on the theological dimensions of Gradowski’s writing.

Books will be available for purchase at the program.

Free to the public. Reservations required.