ANTON THE DOVE FANCIER And Other Tales of the Holocaust <i> by Bernard Gotfryd (Washington Square Press: $7.95; 175 pp.; 0-671-69137-6) </i>

While Nazi ovens and gas chambers claimed lives, the camps themselves, by stripping inmates of the emblems that secure identity--relatives, heirlooms, even clothing--claimed souls. Bernard Gotfryd was one of the lucky few who managed to survive with soul intact, for he had been able to hold on to something the Nazis couldn’t take away: images of better times and places. Not coincidentally, Gotfryd was a photographer’s assistant during the war and a photographer for 30 years after it, and while his narrative in itself is artless and reserved, it is brightened by images that long remain vivid in our mind.

Childhood images of safety: the flying cow who laid an egg in space, according to his grandmother’s tale; from it an eagle hatched, rescuing the cow and bringing her down to Earth. Images of harmony and loyalty: a Guarneri violin, which the author buried in the yard of a trusted neighbor when the Nazis began confiscating musical instruments. After the war, he finds the neighbor, who says the instrument changed his life: “It gave me a sense of responsibility, it made me love music, and it motivated me to become a (violin) repairman. It was given to me in trust, and it became an important link in our friendship.” Images of defiance: Anton the Dove Fancier, a husky, well-built janitor with glistening gold teeth who cares to do nothing but watch his beloved pigeons hide behind puffy clouds or aim for the sun; when the Nazis threaten to confiscate the birds, Anton kills them.

Nearly all of Gotfryd’s characters, in fact, stand in defiance of the war. But not until a story about a Jewish couple who free an SS man after the war because he had helped them during it do we begin to suspect that Gotfryd’s recall might be selective. When the officer breaks down in tears while thanking them (“Here I am celebrating my liberation, but my conscience will never be free”), the couple and the author are “puzzled,” “confused” and “dismayed” that he would feel ridden by guilt. Gotfryd seems nearly as eager as the SS man’s family to rationalize that the man was “just following orders.”

Gotfryd’s omissions suggest that victims can have as great a need for denial as their victimizers. It’s certainly an understandable need, though, for by recalling mostly brighter images, Gotfryd has been able to generate a small circle of light to ward off the encroaching darkness.