Medical Block, Buchenwald. The Personal Testimony of Inmate 996, Block 36 by Walter Poller – medical clerk at Buchenwald, by Walter Poller. Report of inmate no. 996 from Block 39. Poller, a former camp prisoner who stayed at Buchenwald, documented his experiences and the daily horrors of the camp on scraps of paper in the early 1940s. Published by Souvenir Press. London, 1960 – first English edition – copy inscribed and signed by the author. With a special foreword written by him for this edition. Accompanied by harsh photos.
At the opening of the book, the author’s oath: “Today, April 24, 1945… I report on what I experienced in the Buchenwald concentration camp at Ettersberg near Weimar. Before I write a word, I swear by my life, by all that is dear to me, and by all that is worth living for, that I will write only the plain truth. I swear before myself and before humanity: I will not knowingly or negligently write a single word that distorts, exaggerates, or reflects only part of the truth… I take this oath, and I affirm it with my signature.”
The author Walter Poller [1900–1975] was born in Kiel in 1900 and grew up within the workers’ movement. His maternal grandfather was one of the founders of the German Social Democratic Party, and his father devoted his life to that same cause and endured imprisonment for it. As early as the 1930s, Poller began organizing illegal resistance groups in Germany. He was arrested by the Nazis several times between 1933 and 1934 on charges of attempting to undermine the Nazi regime, following political articles he had published in the press. During those years, he underwent 17 interrogations under torture, yet never betrayed his comrades and refused to answer the questions posed to him. In July 1935, he was sentenced to four years in prison for treason against the regime. He served his sentence in four different prisons across Germany. In November 1938, his prison term officially ended, but in practice, he was not released. After a brief interrogation and a so-called “medical examination” that lasted barely two seconds, he was transferred on December 22, 1938, to Buchenwald camp, about a year after the camp was established. At that time, as he described it, “the Nazi fury raged without restraint.” On the way to the camp, he met a fellow prisoner being transported on the same train, who told him about the horrors taking place at the camp and warned him to expect at least three years of imprisonment—with almost no chance of surviving them. That same prisoner died just a few days after the two arrived at the camp. Upon arrival at Buchenwald, Poller was told that anyone who attempted to escape would be shot on the spot. He immediately noticed the stark difference between the prisoners he had known in prison and those in Buchenwald. In prison, inmates would observe each new arrival, try to speak with him, get to know him, and gather various details. In Buchenwald, the prisoners were walking skeletons, completely apathetic—they showed no interest in new arrivals, did not approach them, and even when their eyes glanced in their direction, it was clear they hardly saw them. At that moment, he understood what the prisoner on the train had meant. Immediately upon arrival at the camp, following a full day of interrogation and torture, his clothes were taken from him and he was issued prisoner’s garb, a cap, shoes, an inmate number, and his place in Block 39.
From this point, Poller describes the harsh daily life in the camp: the forced labor hauling unbearably heavy logs, the constant hunger, the deafening music of the camp band that played all day long, the endless roll calls and daily murders, the utter exhaustion of his fellow inmates who died one after another, and the tortures inflicted by the Kapos, whom he said were not worthy of the name “human.” At a certain point, Poller was assigned to serve as a medical clerk in the camp, and in this role he witnessed countless brutal medical experiments carried out by the Nazis on the prisoners. In one instance, he describes entering a barrack where about a hundred dying Jews suffering from typhus were being held, and the doctor had in his possession just enough medication to save only five of them. The doctor turned to him, his “assistant, ” and said he would have to choose five among them. This, Poller recalls, was one of the most difficult moments he experienced in the camp.
His role as a medical clerk was to submit reports on the prisoners’ health conditions, and through this position he managed to save many Jews from death by submitting false reports. Poller was also responsible for ordering medical supplies for the camp, and on many occasions he ordered quantities far greater than what had been approved by the Nazis, thereby saving even more prisoners. On May 9, 1940, Poller was released through the intervention of friends outside Buchenwald. The testimony that formed the basis for his book was written while he was still in the camp, on various scraps of paper that he hid and took with him upon his release.
In the special foreword he wrote for the English edition, Poller notes that fifteen years had passed since the first (German) edition was published, and that now, at the time of this edition’s release, the events described must be remembered as a moral imperative—to eradicate evil throughout the world. He dedicates the book to the memory of the tens of thousands who perished.
The book is accompanied by maps of the camp, as well as harsh photos of emaciated Buchenwald prisoners on wooden bunks in the camp, inmates engaged in forced labor, prisoners who committed suicide or were murdered by the Nazis, the corpses of the victims, the crematorium, a shocking photograph of items produced from human skin by the Nazis, and more.
See also item 118.
277 pages. Copy in excellent condition, hardcover with the original dust jacket. All complete.
