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Menschen am Kreuz - The Shattering Testimony of a Prisoner in Dachau and Buchenwald Camps. Berlin [1943] - First Edition in German - ”I vehemently opposed Hitler and his regime in hundreds of articles in newspapers signed with my full name. Dozens of threatening letters warned me of the Nazis' blood revenge...” - Menschen am Kreuz (”Crucified Men”), the story of a prisoner in Dachau and Buchenwald camps, written by the pro-Jewish journalist Bruno Heilio. Published by Neues Leben Berlin, [1943], first German edition. The Austrian-born author who worked as a journalist and published pro-Jewish articles in several Jewish weekly newspapers (see below) in the 1930s was wanted by the Nazis for several months, until he was arrested by the Gestapo after the ”Anschluss” (annexation of Austria to the territories of the German Reich) in 1938. Was taken to the Dachau concentration camp in the ”celebrity transport” in early April 1938, from there to the Buchenwald concentration camp in September, and was released in April 1939 on the basis of an alleged departure visa to Shanghai. In total, he stayed in both camps for a period of 13 months. After a short investigation, he was accused of anti-Nazi propaganda as a journalist, and was sent along with thirty other detainees to the Dachau camp. When he arrived at the camp, was selected in which 88 Aryan were sorted into one side and 63 Jews into the other. As soon as he arrived at the camp, he was beaten by SS men who tried to extract from him details about Jews he worked with during the time he served as a reporter for the Zionist weekly ”Die Stimme”, which was the main mouthpiece of the Zionists in Austria. He was warned that any attempt to escape from the camp was punished by being shot on the spot, and a violation of the camp's rules, even the slightest, was punished by flogging and hanging on a tree. At the end of the interrogation, he was taken out into the yard, and immediately noticed the terrible appearance of the old prisoners, and within a few seconds realized where he had come. Bruno writes that he now realized that all the reports he wrote while he was a journalist in ”Die Stimme” about the Dachau camp, according to testimonies he heard from people, were not at all close to the harsh reality that he was exposed to in a moment when he arrived at the camp. From here he details the severe torture methods that seemed to him to have actually reached hell itself (the Nazis used to bring the prisoners to a state of ”almost death” through various tortures which he details, for the purpose of scaring the prisoner himself and the other prisoners looking at this horror), he tells in detail About the forced labor, the abuse that the Kapo police officers perpetrated on the prisoners every day in the 'work area' - the shouting, the beatings, the cursing, and the humiliations, and how in a short time he lost the sense of time, and describes in detail how the Nazis' treatment of the Jews was harsh compared to the other ”political prisoners” who were in Dachau. In his testimony published shortly after his release, and considered to this day to be one of the earliest testimonies ever published about what happened in the death camps in Germany, Bruno describes the agenda in the camp. All the prisoners were divided into 34 barracks. It was forbidden to talk at all during working hours. As soon as they arrived at the camp they noticed a canteen, but nothing could be bought there as all their money was taken immediately. A prisoner caught eating while working was shot on the spot. Smoking was also prohibited during working hours. Getting up for work was early in the morning, and in the evening the prisoners were forced to listen to lectures about the superiority of Germany, so that there were hardly any hours of sleep left in the day. Jews and ”Dangerous” political prisoners were sentenced to solitary confinement and removed from the rest of the prisoners or placed in block 4. A daily census was held, half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening, which meant that the prisoners were on their feet for 14 hours, which made the prisoners' walking in a strange walk. The horse blankets that were given to the prisoners had to be arranged on the bed in a stretched manner, a prisoner who found a slight wrinkle on his blanket was punished with torture. Every Sunday there was a cabaret show in the camp, and all the prisoners came to watch it. At a certain point, when the number of Jews transferred to the camp increased, the Nazis started transferring the political prisoners and also Bruno to the Buchenwald camp. In the second part of the book, Bruno describes the months he spent in Buchenwald beginning in September 1938. In Buchenwald he recognized some people he knew from his time as a journalist but could hardly recognize them due to their difficult situation. It was also forbidden to write letters, and on Sundays the prisoners were not given food at all.