Books: Revolutionist

ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE — Arthur Koestler—Macmillan ($2).

The first day the Nazis tortured Communist Peter Slavek they began by spitting in his face. In a bleak, spacious basement room, where the dim light oozed through frosted glass windows and the bored torturers whiled away their leisure hours playing cards and reading newspapers, they next broke his nose, split his lips and knocked out two teeth.

There was a cupboard in the room whose unknown contents terrified Peter more than the blows. When he said: "I have nothing to confess," they opened its doors (there was...

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