June meeting of the Central European Book Club

We invite you to the June meeting of the Central European Book Club, which will be dedicated to József Debreczeni’s book “Cold Crematorium”. During the meeting, we will examine this poignant account of the horrors of life in concentration camps, which, with poetic sensitivity but also journalistic honesty and irony, depicts the fate of people subjected to extreme experiences. We will also consider how words can be used to address this subject and whether it is possible to convey the specific nature of such stories through literature. 

9 June 2026, 18.00

The Central European Book Club meeting in the seminar room on the second floor of the Ravens House will be led by Daniel Warmuz.

First published in 1950, József Debreczeni’s “Cold Crematorium” has been hailed by international critics as a work of Holocaust literature rediscovered after many years, its artistry rivalling the testimonies of Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Imre Kertész and Tadeusz Borowski. The author, a Hungarian writer, poet and journalist, was deported to Auschwitz in May 1944 and spent the following twelve months in Lower Silesia, in the subcamps of Gross-Rosen, which formed part of the notorious “Riese” (“Giant”) project.

His time in the world of Nazi concentration camps, his experience of immense suffering and his brush with death, alongside his hope for survival, did not rob József Debreczeni of his poetic sensibility or the perspective befitting a true reporter – the book is a poignant account of the ordeal of concentration camp prisoners, shedding new light on the social hierarchy that prevailed there and the scale of suffering. Honest, at times uncompromising and not shying away from irony, the text transports readers behind the barbed wire, into the very heart of hell, revealing the fate that “people have wrought upon people”.

József Debreczeni, “Cold Crematorium”, trans. Daniel Warmuz, Filia Publishing House, 2025.

Presenter:

Daniel Warmuz, a Hungarian and Polish language specialist, translator, researcher and populariser of Hungarian literature. He is the author of academic articles, essays and reviews. He translates prose, poetry and drama. His translations include the reportage book “Zimne crematorium” (2025), Zoltán Lesi's “Skok wzwyż” (2021) and Tibor Noé Kiss's “Incognito” (2017). He is the winner of the Adam Włodek Award (2019) and the Angelus Central European Literary Award for his translation of Zoltán Mihály Nagy's poetic novel “Szatański pomiot” (Satan's Spawn) (2022). He lives in Krakow and visits Budapest.