La mystérieuse Caserne Dossin Le Camp de Deportation des Juif – The Jewish Deportation Camp”, by Jos Hakker. Published by “Ontwikkeling”, Antwerp (Belgium), 1944 – First edition. French. A very rare publication written by a prisoner of the Dossin Barracks camp in Belgium who managed to escape from a deportation train en route from the Dossin Barracks to Poland. The book was printed immediately after the liberation of Belgium in 1944 and is considered one of the first accounts published by an eyewitness who was able to share with the world the events that occurred at the infamous Dossin Barracks.
“No people have endured more insults, more defamations, and more persecutions during this war than the Jewish people… In these pages, I bear witness to what I saw and experienced at the Dossin Barracks… Besides my experiences at the Dossin Barracks, I felt the need to provide readers with a general overview of the drama faced by the Jewish population before the deportations began. Luckier than many of my unfortunate companions, I managed to escape from the deportation train and find refuge in Wallonia, amidst the Walloon front…” (From the author’s introduction).
Jos opens with a description of the August 1942 pogroms against Jews throughout Belgium. In Antwerp, the Nazis went door-to-door demanding that Jews present their identity cards. Jews were dragged into the streets and abused as trucks roamed the city, and Belgian citizens handed over many Jews to the Nazis in exchange for bribes. The Nazis allowed each Jew ten minutes to collect essential clothing, and many were taken to Mechelen, Upper Silesia, and Poland. “No fewer than 1,200 people were deported that night… thus began the tragedy of the deportation of the Jewish population in Belgium.” Jos’s wife was gravely ill, and during this time, a ban was imposed on Aryan doctors treating Jews. Jewish Council leaders immediately began negotiating with the Gestapo in an attempt to mitigate the decree, while many Jews sought ways to escape to the unoccupied part of France and from there to Switzerland. At the same time, Gestapo undercover agents, posing as members of the local population, promised to smuggle Jews across the Belgian border for a fee of 25,000 francs. Jews were sent to various addresses in Belgium and the Netherlands as part of this deceitful smuggling operation, only to be captured by the Gestapo. Similarly, the author was caught during his attempt to cross the border using these German impostors after paying 40,000 francs to a disguised German who had promised to help him escape through the Red Cross in Brussels. Along with other Jews caught in similar ways, he was sent to Mechelen. In the city of Mechelen, located in the Antwerp district of Belgium, the Nazis operated the Dossin Barracks transit camp (Kazerne Dossin). This camp was used to detain 26,000 Jews from the Belgian community and Roma, concentrating them for deportation via 28 trains to extermination camps in Eastern Europe. Only 5% of the deportees survived.
Upon arriving in Mechelen, Jos endured a Gestapo interrogation involving torture that dislocated his arm. All his possessions were stolen, and he was thrown into a small cell with twelve others, designed to hold only six. At Dossin, he encountered piles of passports belonging to executed prisoners, photographs, identity cards, and letters from men, women, and children who had been murdered. He witnessed chilling acts of abuse for the first time. After the shock of the first day, Jos describes the camp’s daily routine: about 120 prisoners crammed into each room. At 6 a.m., everyone was awakened by Nazi screams indiscriminately directed at adults, women, and children in the overcrowded space that barely allowed movement. The barrack commander distributed meager food portions. “For months, not once did we see even a small piece of meat, never vegetables, never potatoes, ” Jos wrote. Afterward, a roll call was held, during which prisoners were forced to perform exercises for an hour. New prisoners, arrested on the streets and brought to Dossin, slept for weeks in the clothes they were wearing when detained. Although the camp had twelve showers, the extreme overcrowding made hygiene almost impossible: “In three months, I managed to take only two baths, ” Jos noted. The overcrowded conditions led to numerous illnesses and suicides. Occasionally, a German doctor arrived to examine the condition of the severely ill. Prisoners at Dossin were classified according to their previous professions and usually employed in those same trades within the camp. For example, tailors were tasked with producing uniforms and leather coats for the Russian front, while cobblers repaired shoes.
On one occasion, Jos was selected along with a large group of Jews to leave the camp and be sent to camps in the East aboard trains. After learning that in a previous transport 2,000 Jewish men had been transported in train cars, most of whom did not survive the journey and died in the wagons, he devised a plan to escape by jumping from the train. Midway through the journey, while the train was speeding, Jos seized a moment when the Nazi guards were distracted and jumped into dense vegetation. Fifty meters away, he found another prisoner who had also jumped but was severely injured because he miscalculated his jump and landed on a rock. With no choice, Jos left him behind and continued his escape, encountering more prisoners along the way, including women who had also jumped from the train. He eventually reached a local village and told the residents about his escape. The villagers, fearing Nazi reprisals, refused to let him into their homes and directed him to the village priest. The priest also refused to take him in, forcing Jos to continue his flight. Hours later, at dawn, he encountered cyclists on their way to work who showed him the way to the train station in Liège. There he learned that no fewer than 150 prisoners had escaped from that train. Some gained their freedom, others were injured, and some were killed. Upon arriving in Liège, Jos met members of the White Army of the Walloon Front, who provided him with a hiding apartment and a doctor. The doctor determined that in a few more months at Dossin, he would not have survived due to his dire physical condition. From his hiding place, Jos began underground activities, publishing pamphlets and writing for the press in support of Belgium’s liberation.
“As I write these lines, France is almost free, ” he concludes. “Shortly thereafter, we saw the first American tanks arrive at the Quai de Rome. It was a liberation and joy beyond description.” He describes efforts to bring his captors to justice: “Lists of war criminals are being prepared. These lists will include the names of those who robbed and persecuted thousands of innocents at the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen. These names include Major Schmidt of the Breendonk and Mechelen concentration camps; Hauptmann Steckman, Oberleutnant Meynerhausen, Ober-Feldwebel Bode, Krolsch, a lawyer, Sub-inspectors Propos and Poppe… the proud, the rebels, the free, and soon the time of freedom will come for all oppressed peoples of Europe.” Dated Liège, September 7, 1944, Jos Hakker.
Between July 1942 and September 1944, the Dossin Barracks were known as SS-Sammellager Mecheln, a Nazi collection and deportation camp. Here, 25,274 Jews and 354 Roma were gathered and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other concentration camps in the East. Two-thirds were killed upon arrival. By the time Belgium was liberated and the Holocaust ended, only 1,395 of those deported had survived.
Extremely rare. Only one copy is listed in the WorldCat catalog, held by the “Royal Library of Belgium” in Brussels.
48 pages. Light stains on the cover. Good condition.
