Salomon Isacovici
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}}
{{Short description|Ecuadorian businessman and Holocaust survivor (1924–1998)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Salomon Isacovici
| image = Portraitisacov.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date = 1924
| birth_place = Sighetu Marmaţiei, Romania
| death_date = {{Death year and age|1998|1924|2}}
| death_place = Ecuador
| nationality = Ecuadorian
| occupation = Businessman, writer
}}
Salomon Isacovici (1924 – February 1998) was a Romanian-born Ecuadorian Jewish Holocaust survivor who became a writer and businessman in Ecuador. Born in Romania, he moved to Ecuador following World War II, and co-authored with Juan Manuel Rodriguez the book Man of Ashes.
Personal life
Isacovici grew up in Sighetu Marmaţiei on his parents' farm. In 1944 he was interned at the Auschwitz concentration camp, is both the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau camps. He escaped during a massacre, was shot, recaptured and sent to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gtH4Dxdt_WkC&pg=PP13| title=Man of Ashes|first1=Salomon|last1=Isacovici|first2= Juan Manuel|last2=Rodriguez|authorlink2=Juan Manuel Rodriguez (writer)|others=trans. by Dick Gerde |year=1999 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Lincoln |isbn= 978-0-8032-2501-5}}{{rp|preface}} He remained there until U.S. soldiers liberated the camp.
At the end of the war, he returned to his original home only to find another family in residence. He joined a Zionist group and considered emigrating to Palestine. Instead, in 1948, he followed his sweetheart to Ecuador, and beginning with menial jobs, rose to become a successful businessman. He was deeply concerned that the treatment of Ecuadorian indigenous peoples by the Spanish was comparable to those in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.
''Man of Ashes''
A book co-authored by Isacovici and Juan Manuel Rodriguez was published in Mexico in 1990 as A7393: Hombre de Cenizas.{{cite book|title=A7393: Hombre de Cenizas|first1= Salomon |last1= Isacovici |first2=Juan Manuel|last2=Rodríguez|year=1990|isbn= 978-968-13-2085-0|publisher=Editorial Diana|location=Mexico|language=Spanish|authorlink2=Juan Manuel Rodriguez (writer)|oclc=27333907|trans-title=A7393: Man of Ashes}} The book recounted Isacovici's youth in Romania, his years in Nazi Germany, and his eventual emigration to Ecuador. It was described by its publisher as a "cruel and truthful testimony of the Nazi concentration camps".{{cite book |editor1-last=Wiesel|editor1-first=Elie|editor2-last=Katz|editor2-first=Steven T.|editor3-last=Rosen|editor3-first=Alan |title=Obliged By Memory: Literature, Religion, Ethics: A Collection of Essays Honoring Elie Wiesel's Seventieth Birthday|last=Ozick|first=Cynthia|authorlink=Cynthia Ozick|chapter=Rights of History and Rights of Imagination |publisher=Syracuse University Press|location=Syracuse |year=2006 |pages=8–9|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f721SBeYxbUC&pg=PA8 |isbn=0-8156-3064-6 |accessdate= 27 December 2009|editor1-link=Elie Wiesel|editor2-link=Steven T. Katz}} The book was awarded the Fernando Jeno literary prize by Mexico's Jewish community in 1991.
In 1995, the University of Nebraska Press planned to an English-language version, with a translation by Dick Gerdes, a professor at George Mason University in Virginia. The university press described the book as important to Holocaust studies as a rare account of a Romanian and Latin American Jew.{{cite news|title=U. Nebraska: Delayed Holocaust book finally available at U. Nebraska |last=Sweet|first=Kim|date=26 January 1999 |work=Daily Nebraskan}}{{cite news|title=University of Nebraska Press Refuses to Release Holocaust Memoir |last=Freed|first=Kenneth|date=10 September 1998|work=Omaha World-Herald}} However, its publication was delayed by a dispute about the book's principal authorship and status as a novel or autobiography. Isacovici asserted that the book was his memoir, and that he had hired Rodriguez to improve the Spanish text. Rodriguez threatened legal action, stating that the book was fictionalized, incorporated some of his own memories, and argued he was the main author and should be credited as such.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D4pT3eJvtr4C&pg=PA37|title=The Inveterate Dreamer: Essays and Conversations on Jewish Culture|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|year=2001|pages=37–42|authorlink=Ilan Stavans|last=Stavans|first=Ilan|isbn=978-0-8032-9278-9}}
{{cite book |editor1-last=Su|editor1-first=Di |title=Evolution in Reference and Information Services: The Impact of the Internet |last1=Drobnicki|first1=John A.|last2=Asaro|first2=Richard|chapter=Historical Fabrications on the Internet: Recognition, Evaluation, and Use in Bibliographic Instruction |publisher=Haworth Information Press|location=Binghamton, New York |year=2001 |page= 124|isbn= 978-0-7890-1723-9 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IvqbuSm4sHYC&pg=PA124}}{{cite news|title=NU to Release Jew's Memoir in February|date= 29 November 1998|work=Omaha World-Herald|page=14b}} The controversy has been critiqued as an example of literary usurpation and as an attempt to cast doubt on a Holocaust survivor's experience.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/scrollcross1000y00stav |url-access=registration | chapter=Fragment of Man of Ashes | title=The scroll and the cross: 1,000 years of Jewish-Hispanic literature| editor-first=Ilan|editor-last=Stavans|editor-link=Ilan Stavans| first1= Salomon|last1=Isacovici|first2= Juan Manuel|last2=Rodriguez|authorlink2=Juan Manuel Rodriguez (writer)|publisher=Routledge| year= 2003|pages=[https://archive.org/details/scrollcross1000y00stav/page/198 198]–218| isbn=978-0-415-92931-8 }}
The English translation was published in 1999 with Isacovici and Rodriguez listed as co-authors.
Works
- {{Cite book|title=Man of Ashes|url=https://archive.org/details/manofashes0000isac|url-access=registration|first1= Salomon |last1= Isacovici |first2=Juan Manuel|last2=Rodríguez|year=1999}}
- {{Cite book|title=A7393: Hombre de Cenizas|first1= Salomon |last1= Isacovici |first2=Juan Manuel|last2=Rodríguez|year=1990}}
Death
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Isacovici, Salomon}}
Category:Auschwitz concentration camp survivors
Category:Ecuadorian businesspeople
Category:Ecuadorian male writers
Category:Ecuadorian people of Romanian-Jewish descent
Category:Gross-Rosen concentration camp survivors
Category:Romanian autobiographers