Yechiel Denur, or as he was known to
the public, K. Chatnik, died two weeks ago, a man of mystery for over
fifty years who took most of the riddles he was made of to the grave.
But his most captivating cipher, which engaged followers of Hebrew
literature more than any other literary mystery, has finally been
cracked by Professor Sheintoch of the Department of Yiddish Language
and Literature in Hebrew University's Institute for Jewish Studies.
K. Chatnik was the most renowned Holocaust writer in Israel, and he
was chosen to testify at the Eichmann Trial as someone who had seen
Eichmann with his own eyes. That was the writer's first public
appearance.
Before passing out in the witness box in Binyanei Ha'Uma, he uttered
the key phrase that accompanied the famous trial from start to finish:
"Auschwitz was another planet."
For years K. Chatnik, a Holocaust survivor, tried to depict life there
to the new generation of Israelis. He wrote numerous books that
endeavored to describe "the biggest death factory in the history of
mankind."
Even the writer's pen name, K. Chatnik, means concentration camp in
Polish. The writer never escaped the Holocaust experience and his
confrontation with death, fleeing from everyone and from himself,
refusing to recover from the horror that had become an inseparable
part of his torn life.
One of the literary riddles that became a mythical part of Chatnik's
writings was the code E.D.M.A., which he insisted be printed on every
page of the many books he wrote. Only now has Professor Sheintoch
discovered that this was the code that saved Denur from the hellfires
of Auschwitz.
As a former talmid at Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin and as a member
of a deeply-rooted Polish family, the writer knew an 1,800-year-old
secret to success and preservation -- Eloko deRebbe Meir Aneini
-- and he always made a point of including these letters on every page
of the drafts he wrote, although he never agreed to divulge the
meaning of the mysterious code.
Now another element has been added to the attempt to piece together
the enigmatic profile of K. Chatnik's life.
