CHAD GADJO

by Birnbaum, Uriel

Price: $1,850.00

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Description

Welt-Verlag, Berlin: 5680 [1920.] Hebrew and German text, 29cm X 23cm, paper boards with ties [v; two title-pages: Hebrew and German, ii; 21 pages of liturgical text and illustrations, final verso blank] A very serious and rare children's book illustrated by the son of Nathan Birnbaum, Menachem Birnbaum (1893-1944). Adapted by his younger brother Uriel, it is the song ('Had Gadya') that closes the Passover service: "A kid, an only kid/My father bought for two zuzim./Came a cat and ate the kid,/Came a dog and ate the cat,/Came a stick and hit the dog,/Came a fire and burned the stick,/Came water and extinguished the fire,/Came an ox and drank the water,/Came a slaughterer and slew the ox,/Came the angel of death and slew the slaughterer,/Came the Holy One, blessed be He,/And slew the angel of death." Illustrated with 10 colored wood-block prints on heavy paper with Hebrew and German texts on the verso, initialed in the plate, the happy storybook ending was not realized in Menachem Birnbaum's own life. His dramatic and prophetic illustrations foretold the horror that was soon to unfold in Europe. After emigrating to Holland, Birnbaum was arrested in Amsterdam by the Nazis in 1943 and perished at Auschwitz in 1944. A bright crisp copy, ties worn and missing on one side, front cover slightly worn on the spine. See: Abraham J. Karp, FROM THE ENDS OF THE EARTH: JUDAIC TREASURES OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.