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Wolfgang Nossen, former president of the Jewish community in Thuringia, and supporter of the Topf and Sons memorial site in Erfurt.
© KAREN BARTLETT
The former Topf and Sons administration building, and now memorial site, in Erfurt.
© KAREN BARTLETT
A collection of ash canisters and fire bricks made by Topf and Sons for the SS, now on display at the Topf and Sons memorial in Erfurt.
COURTESY OF NIKOLA KUZMANIC
The drawing board and window on the third floor of the Topf and Sons administration building where Kurt Prüfer worked.
© KAREN BARTLETT
The small wooden house where Ludwig Topf stayed the night before he committed suicide in the Topf family park.
© KAREN BARTLETT
Hartmut Topf in front of what was once Ludwig Topf’s modernist villa.
© KAREN BARTLETT

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BITEBACK PUBLISHING

Before Pep Guardiola and before José Mourinho, there was Béla Guttmann: the first superstar football coach.

Remarkably, Guttmann was also a Holocaust survivor. Having narrowly dodged death by hiding for months in an attic near Budapest as thousands of fellow Jews in the neighbourhood were dragged off to be murdered, Guttmann later escaped from a slave labour camp. His father, sister and wider family were murdered by the Nazis.

But by 1961, as coach of Benfica, he had lifted one of football’s greatest prizes: the European Cup – a feat he repeated the following year. Rising from the death pits of Europe to become its champion in just over sixteen years, Guttmann performed the single greatest comeback in football history.

‘Through thick and thin, never separate. Stick together, guard each other, and live for one another.’

As Hitler’s war intensified, the Ovitz family would have good reason to stand by their mother’s mantra. Descending from the cattle train into the death camp of Auschwitz, all twelve emerged in 1945 as survivors – the largest family to survive intact.

What saved them? Ironically, the fact that they were sought out by the ‘Angel of Death’ himself – Dr Joseph Mengele. For seven of the Ovitzes were dwarfs – and not just any dwarfs, but a beloved and highly successful vaudeville act known as the Lilliput Troupe. Together, they were the only all-dwarf ensemble with a full show of their own in the history of entertainment.

The Ovitzes intrigued Mengele, and amongst the thousands on whom he performed his loathsome experiments, they became his prize ‘patients’: ‘You’re something special, not like the rest of them.’ It was this disturbing affection that saved their lives. After being plunged into the darkest moments in modern history, this remarkable troupe emerged with spirits undimmed, and went on to light up Europe and Israel, which offered them a new home, with their unique performances. Giants reveals their moving and inspirational story.

— AVAILABLE FROM ALL GOOD BOOKSHOPS —

COPYRIGHT

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

Biteback Publishing Ltd

Westminster Tower

3 Albert Embankment

London SE1 7SP

Copyright © Karen Bartlett 2018

Karen Bartlett has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the publisher’s prior permission in writing.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

ISBN 978–1–78590–357–1

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.