1943 Through the Night

Information about the publication of this work is via Scott Ponemeone and his blog at scottponemone.com

…I asked Lev and Gal what was behind her statements: “He wanted them [a publishing house in Palestine] to publish it, to distribute it. But they refused.”

Lev replied that in 1942 “the reality of what was actually happening in Europe was not clear to all. There were shreds of information, claimed by many to be merely rumors. After all, who could believe such atrocities were real. This was probably the underlying reason for the refusal of Davar, a reputable publication which Erich had worked with from time to time, to publish Leilot in Israel at the time.” 

Iddo talked to Ziva about its publication history. “She said as far as she knows, after Erich got a refusal from a well-known publishing house in Israel, he arranged the SA [South Africa] connection privately through a relative of his [second] wife Susi who lived in SA and had a connection to the Johannesburg publishing company. She thinks the family in SA helped the publication from its own family funds.”

Lev added, “A South African publication was issued in 1943 in an English version of the series (the works had been originally titled in Hebrew, as they had been prepared to be issued in Palestine)…. The foreword was written in 1943 by the historian Eric Rosenthal.” The South Africa edition was limited to 200 copies numbered and signed by the artist.

as per Scott Ponemeone blog

• Title: Through the Night
• Author and Illustrator: Erich Glas (he changed his name to Ari Glas)
• Introduction: Eric Rosenthal
• Publication Date: 1943 – it would appear as if the lino blocks were cut in 1942
  • the example below, while published with an intro dated 1943, is pencil signed and dated 1942
  • the later edition (Leilot, published in 1945) uses the same blocks as Through the Night but a number of copies have pencil dates of 1942.
• Publisher: Anthony’s
• Place of publication: Johannesburg, South Africa
• Printer:
• Copyright: artist?
• Dimensions of the folder: 32.8 x 23 cm
  • the folder appears to be thin card that has a textured, dark blue surface on one side with a natural tan on the other. Two pieces of card appear to be laminated so that the folder material appears to be the same on both sides of the cover.
  • The front of the folder has text printed in silver as well as a pill shaped paste down with a black and white image of a rose growing out of a skull. The paste-down is presumably a lino-cut.
• Binding: pages loosely laid into a card folder
• Language: English titles, etc
• Paginated: unpaginated?? but the copy illustrated has hand written numbers in ink. It is unclear as to when/who/why numbers were added.
• Edition: limited to 200 numbered and signed copies
• Printed from the original 20 lino-cuts.
• Description: Note – recto/verso may be misleading as this was originally executed as a Hebrew document that is read back-to-front.
  • 3 leaves: title recto/limitation verso; foreword recto/contents verso; frontis recto/verso blank
  • 20 leaves printed one side
  • leaves: 31.8 x 20.1 cm
• IS THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLE AN ANOMALY? ANY INFORMATION WOULD BE APPRECIATED.
  • It is not numbered but the limitation page has a pencil signed signature and a date of 1942 ie the publication date is believed to be 1943 and the forward is dated 1943;
  • Each image in this copy is also pencil signed;
  • Each image in this copy is hand numbered in black ink.