Mauthausen, città ermetica - "Mauthausen, The Hermetic City" - Documentation of the horrors of the Mauthausen camp according to the Italian prisoner Aldo Bizzarri who spent twelve months there, published by O.E.T., Edizioni Polilibraria. Rome, 1946 - First Edition. Italian. Rare.
"In Mauthausen everything is forbidden" - Memoirs of a prisoner who spent twelve months in the Mauthausen camp. Aldo Bizzarri [1907-1953] was an Italian writer and screenwriter, arrested by the Gestapo for anti-Nazi activities and taken to Mauthausen in the spring of 1944. He worked for long months in the camp as a porter near Barrack 20, where prisoners destined for immediate execution upon arrival in the camp were taken, witnessing every day the horrific sights of prisoners entering the barracks without knowing what awaited them, being tortured and executed. In the book he describes horrific scenes of prisoners he observed, how entire groups came to the camp from Czechoslovakia, Italy, Austria and other places, and the various methods of "treatment" of the SS in that barracks. He was witness to the torture inflicted by commander Schultz a few meters from his workplace almost daily, saying he could still hear the terrible screams of the victims months after the war. According to Aldo's estimates, over 100,000 people were murdered in that barracks immediately upon arrival before being registered in the camp records. He also describes the hunger, the terrible conditions of the prisoners, the hierarchy among the SS commanders of the camp, torture and "assignments" prisoners were told to perform when SS commanders woke them in the middle of the night and gave threatening orders, the terrible attitude towards sick prisoners in the camp, unbelievable sights of corpses of prisoners recently murdered scattered through the camp, the division of tasks in forced labor - and most terrible of all the torture endured by prisoners in the camp's notorious quarry (an entire chapter is dedicated to the quarry and methods of torture and death there, how the Nazis abused the helpless prisoners). Aldo describes at length the variation of torture methods endured by prisoners for even minor "offenses", detailing precisely what the punishments were and how the Nazis carried them out. These chapters are very difficult to read but their historical importance is immeasurable as readers are exposed firsthand to perhaps the worst crimes ever committed by humans throughout history. In the final chapters Aldo documents the chaos in the camp as liberation approached with Nazis beginning to evacuate prisoners to Auschwitz, and large transports of women starting to arrive in Mauthausen and swift executions carried out. Aldo documents the terrible phenomenon of prisoners still collapsing and dying after liberation due to the drastic weight loss and effects of preceding torture. He completed writing in September 1945, explaining in the last chapter his sense of duty as a survivor to publish it for future generations and as a call to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. The following year Aldo published the book "Forbidden to Live" expanding on the events of his incarceration. In his later years he worked in film and even wrote some screenplays. He passed away in May 1953 at age 45.
117 [1] p. Very good condition.
