The Stigmata of Auschwitz is the brief story of the life and love of Rebekah and Gabriel. The two main characters of the story are a young Jewish couple whose lives bringing up their young child are cut short and sacrificed to an evil Nazi ideology. The story takes place between March 1938 to September 1941, in the time of the Shoah (the Holocaust). Gabriel is from Budapest in Hungary, where he is sent on a mission to Munkács in Western Ukraine. There he meets Rebekah. They fall in love, marry, and settle in Munkács, where the population is 42% Jewish. In Munkács, Gabriel and Rebekah build up a successful business and public life: he becomes a councillor representing the Jewish community, while she is a member of the Union of Jewish Women. To complete their enviable lifestyle, they have a much-loved baby son. But their dream is destroyed by the antisemitism unleashed at the outbreak of the Second World War; their life together is ruined by the ruling fascist elite. Consequently, they departed to Auschwitz, where they are murdered. However, their two-year-old son is rescued and raised by their neighbour.
The author’s name is Gabor Bartos. He was born in Budapest 71 years ago. Gabor is a retired ex-piano tuner, inventor and former mayor of Poynton in Cheshire. He loves reading books and he has managed to collect a very eclectic collection of mainly factual and historical books, particularly biographies of interesting people. Gabor has never planned or thought that he should write a novel. He has been inspired to write this novel after a terrible spiritual and emotional experience during a visit to the concentration/death camp at Auschwitz.