Ladislav Porjes' novel

This is the cover of my first book, which I published in 1962 in Slovak, named ?Josele a ti ostatni? [Josele And The Others]. I also published it in Czech, significantly enlarged, in 2001. At that time Arnost Lustig wrote: 'Laco's stories are so chock full with drama, that each one of them would suffice for an entire novel.' Rudolf Iltis, editor-in-chief of the Jewish Vestnik, expressed himself thusly: 'Each story is a literal spectacle from the modern Greek tragedy of European Jewry.' The president of the Bratislava Jewish community, the ethnologist Peter Salner wrote a review of it back then, whose last words were: 'Thank you, Mr. Porjes, for this bittersweet book.' I think that the book's message can be summed up with the Talmudic rule: 'Do not judge thy neighbor, if you have not been in his situation.' I remember that after the book's publication, Karel Hoffmann, the general director of Czechoslovak Radio, where I had worked as a commentator, invited me to meet with him. He berated me, how could I have dared publish a book with 'those contents' without his knowledge and agreement. He added crossly: 'After all, now all of our listeners will know that you're a Jew!'