Die Mütze oder Der Preis des Lebens

This is one of the most important Holocaust books of recent decades: Roman Frister's account of his time in Auschwitz, the moral decay of the prisoners, the dark side of the victims. It is the story of his transformation, from a happy child to a ruthless concentration camp inmate, from the marked one to the life-hungry lover and bohemian who refuses to let life slip away from him.

Roman Frister, the Jewish boy from a good family in wartime Poland, the young man who wants to finally arrive at a good life in post-war Poland, goes through seventy hells to learn how to survive. He is no saint, and the laws of the time of light are suspended. Even in the ghetto and in the camp, friendship and humanity mean nothing when the whirlpool threatens to drag everyone into the abyss. In the end, a cap decides between life and death.