From The Depths Of Our Century

The Holocaust Kingdom
by Alexander Donat
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965, $5.95

It is unlikely that any reader of Mr. Donat’s book will be able to put it down without having been deeply moved. No matter how familiar one might be with the horrors of Nazism, this straightforward account of the sufferings of one family is bound to arouse a variety of emotional reactions: outrage, pity, disgust, bewilderment. Precisely because it is for the most part a highly personal memoir, the book makes an impact that no scholarly study could match. For men are much more capable of responding to the agonies of individuals than to those of the multitude, which in their very enormity seem beyond comprehension.

Turning only occasionally to history or polemics, Mr. Donat concentrates on relating his own experiences. He describes his family’s existence in the Warsaw ghetto, the frightful deprivation...