Memoirs of a prisoner from the days of Dachau liberation - Czech Republic 1945 - First edition

Memoirs of a prisoner from the days of Dachau liberation - Czech Republic 1945 - First edition

VZPOMINKY NA DACHAU - Memories of Dachau. Touching memoirs written by Dachau concentration camp prisoner Rene Hradecky, during the liberation days of the camp. Czechoslovakia 1945 - First edition, dedicated and signed copy by the author. Czech.

Rare day-by-day, hour-by-hour account of the critical final week from April 22 to 29 - the days of Dachau's liberation by a camp survivor prisoner who documented events as they unfolded. Each day, Rene wrote a few lines describing the Allies' advance towards the camp and the Nazis' final actions as they realized their end was near. He depicts severe bread shortages in the camp and prisoners in a state between life and death. He tells of around 2,000 Jews who arrived from Buchenwald, staying in train cars for two nights. This is how he describes April 26: "The situation is worsening, the nervousness increasing. Hunger is spreading, thefts multiplying. During the evening roll call, the prisoners were already divided by nationality. A group of Germans, Russians and others remained at Náměstí Svobody (Appellplatz) as they departed. At the last moment their departure was delayed. What will happen tomorrow the air raids are intensifying, but the "enemy" is still far away. The air strikes are not enough to prevent the transports... The cheese rations were reduced..." He describes the sound of the Allies' artillery gradually getting closer in the following days, a massive transport of sick Jews arriving from Buchenwald, and the excitement that gripped the prisoners when they saw the first white flag flying above the camp gate, with many SS men raising their hands in surrender. Rene details the American takeover of the camp - how hundreds of prisoner bodies were found everywhere, even unknown to the surviving prisoners themselves. He recounts the 10-minute conquest of the camp gate, describing those moments: "Chaos of cannons and rifles mingling with the arms of liberated prisoners. Friends searching for each other... We waited for this for so long, six years and more. He depicts how the camp was swiftly liberated in a battle that passed over the prisoners' heads with few casualties, and how the inmates began singing the song "Germany is Dying Already".

The last page shows illustrations by Rene himself of different areas of the camp - the blocks, wire fence, guard tower - which he drew himself while interned there. The book opens with a photograph of Rene Hradecky after his return from Dachau, and a poem he wrote the day before leaving for home on May 21, 1945, describing the "streams of tears, not a dry eye". The cover bears an impressive illustration of an SS soldier depicted as a skeleton holding a bloody swastika knife, with prisoners and barbed wire in the background.

Rare. Only two copies listed in the w orld cat global library catalog, in libraries in Czechoslovakia.

15 p. Very good condition.