B140.443 vertelt over Buchenwald - "Prisoner No. B140,443 Tells About Buchenwald", by F. Lamote. Published by J. Vermaut, Kortrijk (Belgium) - 1945 - First edition. Dutch. Accompanied by photographs of scenes from the camp, some harsh photos.
"One hundred and twenty men walk slowly through the streets of Weimar towards a forest creeping up the hillside, to Buchenwald. I am one of those hundred and twenty, and I think that from now on I will be nothing more than a number... We walk and think nothing, we stare strangely at things and people around us, who do not know the meaning of the name Buchenwald... The prisoners do not have the courage to whisper a single word to each other. They look around worriedly and their strained faces reflect their thoughts... We see a cart with corpses passing by..."
The harrowing testimony of Dutch prisoner no. B140,443 in Buchenwald camp, beginning the day he arrived - the stripping of human identity by removing clothes, confiscating possessions, shaving heads, exchanging civilian clothes for prisoner uniforms (which he calls a "zebra costume"), assigning prisoner numbers to clothes, and being sent to forced labor. Lamote describes in detail the daily occurrences in the camp, the severe hunger, forced labor, torture, and ever present death in the air.
Lamote managed to survive in the camp until being liberated by the Allies, and he extensively recounts the hours when the camp was liberated, how the rapid advance of the Allies foiled the Nazi plan to evacuate all prisoners, the massive bombings that turned parts of the camp to ash piles within minutes. He details the death march of prisoners taken by the Nazis, with any prisoner who sat down from exhaustion being shot on the spot, how they were murdered one by one as the Allied forces advanced, and finally the emotional moments of liberation when the prisoners realized the nightmare was over and the efforts of Allied soldiers to save all who could be saved in their dire physical condition.
Rare. Only few copies in the world cat library catalog.
95 p. Good condition.
