SOUVENIR des CAMPS DE LA MORT - Memories of the Death Camps - Testimonies of former prisoners in the Nazi death camps, published by FEDERATION NATIONALE DES DEPORTES ET INTERNES RESISTANTS PATRIOTES - National Federation of Deportees and Interns Candidates for Patriots, Paris 1945. Foreword by resistance fighter and French minister Marcel Paul - dedicated copy by Marcel Paul on the title page.
Four testimonies of former prisoners in the death camps. In his introduction, Paul points out the obligation to constantly remember what fascism is and what its terrible results were. The first testimony was given by a photojournalist, a member of the French resistance movement during World War II, and former Auschwitz prisoner Marie-Claude and Ian Couturier, describing in detail the terrible suffering and horrors she experienced in Auschwitz, and the Nazi abuse of the Jews in the camp (Couturier testified at the Nuremberg Trials. See also the sale of Dynasty no. 20 item 103). There is a section by the former prisoner J. Najac, as well as a testimony of a former prisoner in the Buchenwald camp, describing the types of punishments in the camp, and the humiliating treatment that was directed towards the Jews. Also under the title TRANSPORT - Deportation, ex-prisoner Maurice Gaston documents the arrival of a group of deportees to Buchenwald and their execution. There is also a testimony about the forced labor in Dachau by the former prisoner "Richard". The booklet ends with a poem Leon Rose dedicated to his friend Morris, under the title "Courage" - he praises him and thanks him for saving his life.
Marcel Paul [1900-1982] is one of the resistance fighters famous for the countless heroic rescues he performed during World War II. Paul began his career as an active politician in the French Communist Party in the 1920s. In World War II he was drafted into the French army, was captured by the Nazis but managed to escape and fled to England. In November 1940 he returned to Paris and headed the rebel organization SPFciale which was responsible for the failed attempt to assassinate Hermann Göring. In November 1941, he was arrested a second time by the Nazis, and interrogated at the police station of Saint Denis, taken to the Compiègne, and then to the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. In Buchenwald, he participated in the prisoners' revolt in April 1945. During his years in the camps, he saved the lives of many prisoners, and after the war, he was received with great honor at the liberation celebrations of the camps. After the liberation of France, he became Minister of Industrial Production of the interim government under Charles de Gaulle.
A Rare and unknown booklet. We did not find it in any bibliographic record, it was published immediately after the war as part of the efforts to publish every scrap of testimony received from prisoners who could describe the horrors they underwent. It does not appear in the world catalog of libraries world cat.
[15] 1 p. 21 cm. Title cover. Very Good Condition.
