There, everybody had the same name: Ka. Tzetnik. Reflections about the novel Salamandra

Abstract

In 1946 the book Salamandra is published in Tel Aviv, signed by an Holocaust survivor by the name of Ka. Tzetnik. This author remained anonymous until his appearance as a witness in Adolf Eichmann's trial , which took place in Jerusalem in 1961. Salamandra is the first testimonial novel published about the Shoa. It is, therefore, an exceptional testimony written by an Auschwitz survivor, soon after he was freed from the death camp, while he was in Italy waiting to emigrate to Eretz Israel. The novel recounts the protagonist’s life experience, since the summer of 1939, in Warsaw, until February 1945, when he manages to escape the death march and Auschwitz-Birkenau is freed.