The Fifth Diamond

This is the story of Irene Zisblatt, Auschwitz and after. Her autobiography moves from Irene’s childhood in Hungary through her terrifying coming-of-age as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps and her life in America. It is a story of compassion and hope between two young girls whose bizarre fate brought them together, whose love for each other inspired their survival, and whose friendship tragically ended with liberation in the forests of Germany.

The lack of bitterness with which Irene tells her experience, along with her straight-forward style, adds power to what is essentially a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. Faced with the dehumanizing ordeal of life in Auschwitz-Birkenau, she found that by believing strongly that her horrors were temporary, she could cling to the hope that she could survive and be human again.

It has take Mrs. Zisblatt fifty years to recount the terror of her experience. We should be grateful for her courage to relive these events in order to write this book. Irene is grateful to this country for giving her the opportunity to begin life anew. She is not embittered or filled with hatred and it is her goal to educate children in order to rid the world of prejudice, intolerance, and indifference.