A Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova

Lustig, Arnost. A Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. First American edition. Octavo. [6], 165, [1]pp. Original printed dust-jacket over cloth with black lettering on spine. “A Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova” is Lustig’s worldwide most famous novella. It is a suggestive and artistically strong account of one of the most tragic, most monstrous and most arresting events of modern history, the Nazi Holocaust. The protagonist is a young Jewish girl named Katerina who, soon after arriving to the Auschwitz concentration camp, manages to join a group of several fabulously rich Jewish millionaires with American nationality taken prisoners by Nazis in Italy in 1943. The group of businessmen and Katerina, whom one of them decided to protect, are promised, after having paid a considerable sum of money, a safe passage to freedom – in America where they are to be exchanged for German prisoners of war. But the conditions under which the prisoners can “buy off” their lives and freedom from the Nazis keep rising and the already paid large amounts of money are constantly extended by new items. Moderate rubbing along edges of dust-jacket. Price torn on front flap. Fly leaf inscribed by previous owner. Dust-jacket in overall good, binding and interior in very good condition. g. Hardcover. (33913) $40