Bidspirit auction | Mauthausen 1942 - Dachau 1945

Mauthausen 1942 - Dachau 1945 - Early testimony by a prisoner of the Dachau and Mauthausen camps - Czechoslovakia 1946 - First edition - Mauthausen 1942 - Dachau 1945 - Testimonies and Documents, by Dr. Milos Vitek, published by KLUB KOUNICOVYCH KOLEJI V BRNE. Czechoslovakia 1946 - First edition. The story of the prisoner of the Mauthausen and Dachau camps, Milos Vitek, written in the Dachau camp itself after his liberation by the Allied forces. Accompanied by harsh photos of the bodies of those who perished in the camp and of the atrocities committed there. An unfiltered and horrifying account by Mauthausen and Dachau camp prisoner Milos Vitek, written in the Dachau camp in May 1945 after his liberation by Allied forces. Vitek was captured by the Gestapo in 1941 on charges of preparing high treason for foreign intelligence regarding the war industry, and for membership in a committee aiding democratic Spain. This was part of a broad wave of arrests carried out by the Gestapo among academics at the University of Brno. He was taken together with several of his fellow students to Mauthausen. There he was imprisoned for three years, and from there transferred to Dachau. When they arrived at Mauthausen, they were told that the only way out of the camp was through the chimney—“no one leaves here alive.” In Mauthausen, he and his companions were called the “Czech University gang” by the camp commanders, and immediately upon arrival the torture began: “They left us standing half-naked in the snow, wearing only our clogs, many of us for up to five hours in frost of minus fifteen degrees. Many of them froze to death and sooner or later died from the effects of frostbite...”. Vitek, who was taken to forced labor in the quarry near the camp, describes throughout the book the unimaginable suffering, the Nazi cruelty, the experiments carried out by camp doctors on the prisoners’ bodies, the daily mass killings, and the routine of horrific events, in what he calls: “a tragedy without parallel in the history of human suffering.” For example, he writes: “On February 18, 1942, we began working on clearing the ground, to which most of the professors of the University of Brno and many of Brno’s intelligentsia fell victim. Exhausted from a full day of hard labor with shovels and pickaxes without a moment of rest, under the weight of sand and rocks, blows, blows, and again blows to death, after a short stay in the camp, our best men died from frostbite, furunculosis, phlegmon, edematous swelling from hunger and malnutrition, dysentery or a kind of epidemic diarrhea, as a result of brutal treatment, and exhaustion from superhuman effort. One comrade died after another. Professor Růžička was the first victim. Professors Bayer and Bačka died, followed by Professors Važný, Křivý... I cannot detail the suffering of all these martyrs. Words cannot describe the true environment of exile and the terrible circumstances in which they died...”. On the scale of “suffering” in the camp, Vitek writes that the Spaniards, the Poles, and the Russians all suffered without exception. Yet the harshest hell was endured by the Jewish prisoners. He describes in his testimony how countless times he came close to death and was certain he would not leave the camp alive, particularly in light of the fact that many of his friends were murdered or put to death in bizarre ways before his eyes. The book is accompanied by harsh photos from the camps, some of which are published here for the first time. Among them: the arrival of prisoners at Mauthausen in cattle cars, photographs of the camp barracks and guard towers, the infamous quarry steps - “no one was slaughtered in such a barbaric manner as on these steps, ” it is written - bodies of those who perished near the crematorium, bodies of those who perished in the Dachau camp as found by the Americans, bodies of those who perished lying alongside the railway tracks that led to the camp - these were the last prisoners murdered by the Nazis when they learned that the Allied forces were approaching the camp, the Dachau crematorium, and more. Also included are early photographs documenting the liberation of the camp by Allied forces and the joy of the survivors. In addition, the book is accompanied throughout by illustrations of difficult scenes from the camp. 108 [2] pages. 22 cm. Thick paper. Minor tears at the upper part of the paper wrapper. Very good condition.