Dickie 1

Salina Dickie
Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103
30 October 2014
Am I A Murder?
For a Jewish Police Officer living in the Warsaw Ghetto, this is the ultimate question.
Not for the reasons one may think. When first picking up this book, many perceive the title
meaning that as a Ghetto Police Officer, the author Calel Perechodnik may have been
responsible for the death of many by maintaining order as many Nazis did. That was my
primary intention when picking up this book, but in later reading one finds out that Calel
Perechodnik believes he is a murder because as a Ghetto Police Officer, Perechodnik has the
opportunity to save his family but because of misleading information his wife Anne and his
daughter Athalie were sent to Treblinka. (Perechodnik, 51) I was interested in the perspective of
a Jew who was closer to Germans, who witnessed horrific things in a different perspective. This
book was definitely not what I was expecting, but the short life of Calel Perechodnik provided
insight of a man that was just always at the wrong place at the wrong time.
This book was terribly sad, and the way that the author writes is very interesting. This
was an active diary during the Holocaust, he managed to have particular dates as well as specific
names and locations. The most amazing part of this book was after his wife and daughter died,
he was sent to a labor camp. Perechodnik was able to keep this diary hidden while he was in a
camp. After his escape, which is also quite impressive, he finds a Polish woman who agrees to
hide him. The woman is definitely not well educated on the war, she is unable to read and her
husband died in the war, this is a huge advantage for Calel. After 105 days of hiding with his

Dickie 2
family, contracting typhus, and being involved in the Nationwide Polish Rebellion called
Operation Tempest, he took his own life by swallowing cyanide. Before he killed himself he
decides to give his diary to a Polish friend, who later has it published. (Perechodnik) This man
was a good, resourceful person and it surprised me that he did not make it through the Holocaust.
I think this proves that the Holocaust took whoever, it didnt matter if you were smart, rich, or
attractive.
This book has a lack of dialogue. It is very indirect at times and I wish the author was
able to elaborate on how others felt during certain situations, such as the feelings of his wife
when she realized she was going to die. This book is another story of a victim in the Holocaust.
This book is very upsetting because this man blamed himself for the death of his family. This
wasnt his fault and it upsets me that this man lived the last three years of his life believing that.
Calel died at a very young age 27, and even though he struggled through so much, this book
really helps me realize how Germans thought of the Jews even more. The way he elaborated on
how useless Jews had become to the Germans made me think about Jewish life differently. His
story is one I will never forget.
The most impactful event I read into this book occurred when Calel was having lunch
with a Non-Jew, and as the conversation progressed the man asked Calel why didnt the Jews do
anything to stop the Holocaust, and that Jews are the most passive race and couldnt save
themselves. It is because of people like these, who didnt want to help and expected the victims
to get out of the situation themselves is why the Holocaust lasted for so long. Many stories and
poems discuss this theme, and this is a common theme in this diary.
After reading this book, I was enlightened by how difficult it was to survive. Calel did
everything right, he did what he could to save himself and his family, and he still suffered. He

Dickie 3
was very intelligent and was going to be an engineer, he spent eight years in college and then had
a child, for nothing. His life was cut short because of this tragic event and I think this death is the
saddest death I have come across, his diary has a mood full of melancholy, and he caused me to
sympathize with him more than any other victim. I learned a lot about how the War affected
Poland and its citizens, and how death is so close to us, so close we will never see it coming.

Dickie 4
Works Cited
Perechodnik, Calel. Am I A Murderer? Boulder , CO: A Division of HarperCollins
Publishers, Inc., 1996. Print.