My Four Years of Horror through the Holocaust.

First edition of one of the most important of Holocaust memoirs, produced in a very small number of copies. Presentation copy from the author, inscribed on a preliminary blank: "To Mr & Mrs Gourany, May the tragedy of the Holocaust bring people together to create a better world for generations to come. With kind regards Henry L. Robertson, N. Y. 6/13.83" and with the author's address slip taped below; Heinz Rosenberg changed his name to Henry Robertson when he emigrated to America in 1949; his book was published in a German translation in 1985 as Jahre des Schreckens.

"Heinz b. 1921 was the youngest of three children born to a Jewish family in the German university city of Goettingen. His father owned a linen factory that had been in the family since it was founded by Heinz's grandfather. Goettingen had a small Jewish population, and only one synagogue. Heinz went to public school in the city. 1933-39: In 1933 the Nazis took power in Germany. A year later our factory was seized. Three SA men came to our house. An officer set a gun on the table and calmly informed my father that if we did not leave in a week, "You and your furniture will be thrown out the window." Within a month we moved to Hamburg. Nazi edicts prohibited me from going to school, so I worked several jobs. I was also recruited by the Nazis as a forced laborer. 1940-44: In 1941 I was forced with my family to sign a paper stating that, as a Jew, I was being deported as an enemy of the state. We were told we'd be going to work in the east. Many felt that it wouldn't be so bad, and we'd return home soon. We boarded a train and after four days arrived in Minsk, Soviet Union. Leaving the train, I saw guards throwing loaves of bread into open cattle cars full of Soviet POWs. As the starving men fought over the food, German guards shot at them. I then realized we were never going to return. Heinz was in the Minsk ghetto until 1943. Over the next two years he was sent to 11 Nazi camps. He was one of the few survivors of the tens of thousands in the Minsk ghetto" (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum online). In an interview with the USHMM, Rosenberg explained that "I happen to me a man who went through thirteen camps I hold this book in order that people should know what went on I didn't write it for myself, I know the stories, I was there. But the people who were not there, they should learn from it, you see, otherwise we will destroy ourselves"