Kette der Tage – Gedichte aus Dachau (“Chain of Days – Poems from Dachau”) – A Collection of Haunting Poems Written in the Dachau Concentration Camp by Journalist and Poet Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz, Published at the End of the War. Gerd Hatje Publishing, Stuttgart [1945] – First and Rare Edition – Signed and Dedicated Copy by the Author.
A collection of twenty poems written in Dachau Concentration Camp by prisoner Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz, describing the most harrowing situations he experienced and witnessed in the camp. The poems are written in a sharp, piercing, and unfiltered style, reflecting with uncompromising honesty the daily life in the camp—the physical and mental suffering of the prisoners, their thoughts, and emotions.
Kupfer describes the roll call assemblies (“Appell”)—”Twelve thousand men stand in line. Has anyone ever seen twelve thousand completely shaved heads before?…”, the Gestapo, hunger—”Do you see that man swaying there? His face is so pale, he drags himself forward, barely able to walk. I have never seen a face so thin and wretched…”, the crimes of the block elders: “They are responsible for many deaths. How many have hanged themselves? They shattered our very selves into pieces—and today they are still proud of it!…”, the tortures—”‘Tree’ is what they call the torture post, where the victim hangs helplessly, his arms behind his back, until greater agony takes hold. He dangles from the post, his head and forehead lowered… and the torment lasts forever, while the SS man smokes cheerfully…”, hunger—”Friend, I am starving, friend, have mercy—oh, give me your potato peels, it cannot be your bread—that’s what many say and beg and walk away, their eyes half-mad with hunger! I have seen hundreds like this…”, the kapo—”Whoever wears the yellow armband has the right to everything. He has the right to beat and curse. That is enough: if he has the yellow armband, he has the right to everything.”, transports—”They take them away, no one knows where. They call it ‘transportation.’—Everyone aches with fear, and everyone wonders: where are they going? To what place?”, Chain of Days—”And so, each day, our very selves are stamped into shape, divided into a dozen meaningless parts: all become prisoners of the same rank, even the soul wears a uniform, feeling neither suffering nor joy.”, and more.
One of the most horrifying poems describes the impossible reality in which prisoners wrote letters to their families but were forbidden from revealing their true suffering. Titled “We Write, ” it reads: “We write a letter every two weeks, on lined paper, we write a letter every two weeks. We are not allowed to say what we do or what happens to us—when we are miserable, we are not allowed to complain, we cannot say anything about our gray days. So we always write the same old song: ‘My dear ones, I am well. My dear ones, I am fine—send regards to everyone, to Mother, to Aunt, to the dog. Do not worry, I am really well—and I hope you are all doing well too…’”
Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz (1906–1991), a German journalist and poet. After the Nazis came to power, he emigrated to France in 1934 and later moved to Italy. On November 11, 1940, he was sent to Dachau concentration camp by the Gestapo, and from November 1942 onward, he worked as a clerk in a Dachau subcamp, assigned to the Präzifix screw factory, an arms manufacturer. During this period, from November 20, 1942, until May 2, 1945, he risked his life and secretly wrote what became known as the “Dachau Diaries, ” which he hid. The diary was discovered during the liberation of Dachau. Edgar was freed in late April 1945 and was an eyewitness to the local retribution actions against the SS. Excerpts from his diary were published in May 1945 in a report by the U.S. Army’s 7th Division.
Extremely rare. Not listed in the WorldCat global library catalog (which only lists the 1947 edition).
40 pages. Very good condition.
