Bidspirit auction | ”The mysterious barracks at Dossin

”The mysterious barracks at Dossin in Mechelen, the Jewish deportation camp” - an important testimony of a Jewish prisoner who managed to escape from the Dossin barracks camp in Mechelen (Belgium). Antwerp, 1944 - First edition - La mystérieuse Caserne Dossin Le Camp de Deportation des Juif - The Jewish Deportation Camp”, by Jos Hakker. Published by ”Ontwikkeling”, Antwerp (Belgium), 1944 - First edition. French. A very rare publication written by a prisoner of the Dossin Barracks camp in Belgium who managed to escape from a deportation train en route from the Dossin Barracks to Poland. The book was printed immediately after the liberation of Belgium in 1944 and is considered one of the first accounts published by an eyewitness who was able to share with the world the events that occurred at the infamous Dossin Barracks. ”No people have endured more insults, more defamations, and more persecutions during this war than the Jewish people... In these pages, I bear witness to what I saw and experienced at the Dossin Barracks... Besides my experiences at the Dossin Barracks, I felt the need to provide readers with a general overview of the drama faced by the Jewish population before the deportations began. Luckier than many of my unfortunate companions, I managed to escape from the deportation train and find refuge in Wallonia, amidst the Walloon front...” (From the author’s introduction). Jos opens with a description of the August 1942 pogroms against Jews throughout Belgium. In Antwerp, the Nazis went door-to-door demanding that Jews present their identity cards. Jews were dragged into the streets and abused as trucks roamed the city, and Belgian citizens handed over many Jews to the Nazis in exchange for bribes. The Nazis allowed each Jew ten minutes to collect essential clothing, and many were taken to Mechelen, Upper Silesia, and Poland. ”No fewer than 1,200 people were deported that night... thus began the tragedy of the deportation of the Jewish population in Belgium.” Jos’s wife was gravely ill, and during this time, a ban was imposed on Aryan doctors treating Jews. Jewish Council leaders immediately began negotiating with the Gestapo in an attempt to mitigate the decree, while many Jews sought ways to escape to the unoccupied part of France and from there to Switzerland. At the same time, Gestapo undercover agents, posing as members of the local population, promised to smuggle Jews across the Belgian border for a fee of 25,000 francs. Jews were sent to various addresses in Belgium and the Netherlands as part of this deceitful smuggling operation, only to be captured by the Gestapo. Similarly, the author was caught during his attempt to cross the border using these German impostors after paying 40,000 francs to a disguised German who had promised to help him escape through the Red Cross in Brussels. Along with other Jews caught in similar ways, he was sent to Mechelen. In the city of Mechelen, located in the Antwerp district of Belgium, the Nazis operated the Dossin Barracks transit camp (Kazerne Dossin). This camp was used to detain 26,000 Jews from the Belgian community and Roma, concentrating them for deportation via 28 trains to extermination camps in Eastern Europe. Only 5% of the deportees survived. Upon arriving in Mechelen, Jos endured a Gestapo interrogation involving torture that dislocated his arm. All his possessions were stolen, and he was thrown into a small cell with twelve others, designed to hold only six. At Dossin, he encountered piles of passports belonging to executed prisoners, photographs, identity cards, and letters from men, women, and children who had been murdered. He witnessed chilling acts of abuse for the first time. After the shock of the first day, Jos describes the camp’s daily routine: about 120 prisoners crammed into each room. At 6 a.m., everyone was awakened by Nazi screams indiscriminately directed at adults, women, and children in the overcrowded space that barely allowed movement. The barrack commander distributed meager food portions. ”For months, not once did we see even a small piece of meat, never vegetables, never potatoes, ” Jos wrote. Afterward, a roll call was held, during which prisoners were forced to perform exercises for an hour. New prisoners, arrested on the streets and brought to Dossin, slept for weeks in the clothes they were wearing when detained. Although the camp had twelve showers, the extreme overcrowding made hygiene almost impossible: ”In three months, I managed to take only two baths, ” Jos noted. The overcrowded conditions led to numerous illnesses and suicides. Occasionally, a German doctor arrived to examine the condition of the severely ill. Prisoners at Dossin were classified according to their previous professions and usually employed in those same trades within the camp. For example, tailors were tasked with producing uniforms and leather coats for the Russian front, while cobblers repaired shoes. On one occasion,