Oranienburg Concentration Camp - Rare and early documentation of the Nazi atrocities in Oranienburg in the words of ...

Oranienburg Concentration Camp - Rare and early documentation of the Nazi atrocities in Oranienburg in the words of an escaped prisoner who was persecuted by the Nazis. Amsterdam 1934 - First Dutch edition

CONCENTRATIEKAMP ORANIENBURG DOOR GERHART SEGER - Oranienburg Concentration Camp by Gerhart Seger, published by Arbeiderspers. Amsterdam 1934 - first Dutch edition. The first testimony about the atrocities of the Nazis in the Oranienburg camp while they happened - Oranienburg, one of the first camps established by the Nazis for opponents of the regime in its early days. At the beginning of the book is a dedication (in print) to the female political prisoners who "demonstrated amazing bravery in these terrible times...".

The famous story of Seger detailing his experiences in the Oranienburg concentration camp, where opponents of the Nazi party were held captive. Gerhart Seger (Leipzig 1896 - New York 1967) was a German Social Democratic politician, journalist and pacifist. He was a member of the Reichstag from 1930 to March 1933. After the Nazi Party seized power, Seger was one of the first Reichstag members to be taken into "protective custody", and was among those first politicians who were persecuted, arrested and taken to the Oranienburg concentration camp by the Nazi regime. He was first in the Dessau courthouse jail and after a short time was transferred to the Oranienburg concentration camp on June 14, 1933 with other political prisoners. Seger was one of the first to arrive at the camp and his low prisoner number 190 attests to this. However, after about six months Seger managed to escape and fled to Prague in December 1934, where he wrote the sensational report before us in which he documents his experiences in the Oranienburg concentration camp, while the Nazis are still searching for him.

Seger documents in detail the daily schedule in the camp, which started at five thirty in the morning. The prisoners were employed in forced labor of paving roads for hours on end in the cold and heat, with almost no food. He documents countless cases of camp commanders abusing prisoners. The system worked as follows: Hitler Youth would hang swastika flags in places near the homes of opponents of Nazism, and when they took down the flags they were arrested by the SA and taken to the camp, where they underwent torture in order to "re-educate" them to loyalty to the Führer, with each time the camp commanders producing new patterns of mental and physical humiliation. He tells of the torture that almost every prisoner in Oranienburg went through - the impossible obstacle course that claimed the lives of many. Among other things, Seger exposes in detail the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the infamous Room 16 in the camp, which was called the "Police and Investigation Department": "Room 16! I cannot possibly count the number of abuses that took place in that room until the day before my flight and which will continue to take place there now. I cannot specify the exact number of people who lost their lives as a result of the "investigation" that took place in Room 16..." and he goes on at length to document cases of terrible abuse that the prisoners underwent in this room, and more.

At some point Seger writes: "I made the decision to escape from the Oranienburg concentration camp when I found myself in a situation of hesitating between suicide and escape...". One day when he went out with other prisoners for digging work outside the camp, he took advantage of a moment of distraction by the group's guard and began to run under the cover of nearby trees. After an arduous escape journey, he reached Berlin, changing cabs, trains, and cabs again and again, and finally managed to cross the border, still in shock at the magnitude of the Nazi cruelty he had been exposed to, and determined to publish to the world everything he had experienced and seen in Oranienburg.

The detailed report exposing the torture and murder methods of the Nazis in the early days of the Nazi era attracted wide international attention, through which the world learned for the first time that the Nazis were actually implementing the uncompromising ideology against its opponents - the book was published at a time when Goebbels and his people were trying to publish a false pretense as if the concentration camps were convalescent homes. As revenge for the publication of the book, the Gestapo took Seger's wife and young daughter as hostages in early 1934. Only protests from abroad led to the release of the family from prison and allowed them to leave the country. Shortly thereafter, he immigrated to the USA, where he worked as a journalist for the Neue Volkszeitung published in New York, gave lectures on the deeds of the Nazi regime, and was politically active and became a well-known lecturer. Seger was placed on the Third Reich's third list of exiles whose German citizenship was revoked, and became wanted by the Nazis. After the war he remained in America and worked as a freelance journalist since 1950. He became known mainly through his lecturing activity - Seger gave more than 11,000 lectures in the USA alone. The book was first published in German that same year, and was quickly translated into Dutch.

On the cover is an impressive photomontage showing a Nazi guard and prisoners at roll call in the Oranienburg camp.

102 p. 21 cm. Good condition.