Ere the Cock Crows (English)
Norwegian author Jens Bjørneboe's chilling novel follows the ethical quandaries--or not--of Germans involved in Nazi concentration camps and human medical experiments in World War II. Dr. Reynhardt rejects Nazi ideology, while compartmentalizing his life as a loving family man and his work on horrific medical experiments performed on prisoners of war. Head of camp Heidenbrand is more self-aware of his Nazi complicity and his reasons for doing so--his own drive for power and wealth. The situation is complicated by the arrival at the camp of Samuel, a Jewish prisoner and childhood friend of both Reynhardt and Heidenbrand. Themes of man's inhumanity to man, the ethics of modern science, and the responsibilities inherent in free will are explored, presaging concerns that continue throughout Bjørneboe's body of work.
Originally written as a play but eventually published as a novel, this first English-language edition includes a re-creation of the original play by the translator.
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"...the material is relevant for an America that has recently passed through a traumatizing period-one that has provided a warning of how the strategies of fascist and racist regimes of the past can be introduced like a contagion into a democratic culture. Ere the Cock Crows is an artistic rendering of a worst-case scenario, of the institutionalization of cruelty under the auspices of the state. It's a danger alive in the present."-from the Foreword by Joe Martin, Johns Hopkins University
