When the Tiso regime in Slovakia introduced anti-Jewish laws, Bleich and his brother had to leave high school and attend a Jewish school. Their father’s business was aryanized. On 7 April 1942 Bleich, then aged 17, and his younger brother were arrested by the Hlinka Guard and were sent to Poprad and from there to Auschwitz. The account reports particularly vividly and with many details the unspeakable horrors of that camp. At first Bleich was allocated to road work, later to the building of the crematorium and the Buna works. Atrocities, suicides of the prisoners and murders by the Kapo were daily occurrances. When prisoners, Bleich among them, reported sick, they were given fatal injections or sent to the extermination block 7. Miraculously, Bleich was spared, although twice the lorries to take the victims to the gas chambers, halted in front of the block. Due to starvation and excessive work Bleich became one of the Muselmänner.

His brother Eugen also eventually came to Block 7, and after some time Bleich was told that all the inmates had been gassed. Caused by utter lack of sanitation and vermin, typhoid and boils spread and killed hundreds. When the epidemics endangered also the SS. extensive delousing operations were carried out, but the interminable roll-calls and inspections gave renewed chances for brutalities. In 1943 Bleich was ordered to peel potatoes. As he ate the raw peels, he contracted dysentery and skin diseases and lost this coveted job. He was sent back to building work and collapsed.

In March 1943 he accidentally met a friend, Meyer Mittelmann, who worked in the “Canada” Commando, and due to the energetic efforts of this man and despite many obstacles, Bleich was given medical care, some food and eventually a job in Mittelmann's commando, where he worked until August 1943 and enjoyed the various advantages involved. During that time with the Aufräumunskommando Bleich recalls the arrival of 2 transports: all the 3,000 prisoners of one were suffocated, while the 1,200 prisoners of the second were gassed immediately. Finally B. could not stand the handling of corpses any longer, and in August 1943 he volunteered for work in Warsaw on the site of the old ghetto. During their work, prisoners found hundreds of corpses, but also quantities of goods and valuables.

When the Russians approached, the camp was evacuated, the ill and weak prisoners were shot, the others had to march in the summer heat without water, and the SS shot anyone trying to quench his thirst. In Silesia they were crammed into cattle trucks; many of the prisoners went almost mad with thirst. Dachau was in a state of liquidation, the prisoners stayed there only for 2 weeks and proceeded to Ampfing. They worked on an underground factory and lived in underground huts. When Germany collapsed, an order was given to shoot all inmates, but the commandant of Ampfing did not obey this order and send the prisoners on yet another transport which led them to the liberating American army. After short periods in Munich under American care, at his home town and in the DP Camp Feldafing, Bleich married and emigrated to Australia.

A report on ill-treatment of the worst kind, atrocities, horrible conditions of life in camps and during transports; mass-murders. Also includes information on the author's deportation from Frankfurt am Main to Minsk where he arrived in 22 November 1941; unbelievably bad conditions; vermin (p.1, 4, 6). The Robert Ley-House (p.1). Wehrmacht and SS (p.1). When a gun was found at the Loot-Commando, left there by Russian workmen, every seventh of the Jewish detainees was shot including a former reserve officer who held both Iron Crosses.

High death-rate because of starvation (p.2, 6, 8) and mass-murder (p.2-5). Unteroffizier Peter Greven late of Cologne, saved the lives of five men of the Heeresbaudienst Stelle on occasion of the massacre of 60 internees. In July 1942, 8,000 Jews were murdered during one Aktion (p.2). Heeresverpflecmagazin: Oberzahlmeister Heinrich (p.2-3) ordered the Yellow Star not to be worn in the Office, his successor did not object, but Oberscharführer Rübe (on 13 March 1943) had the 12 girls and 4 women of the Office led to the cemetery by sixteen Russians to be shot there, including the author's twenty-year-old daughter, his only child. On 26 May 1943, Gestapo-men shot dead every living being at the sick-bay, patients, nurses, children and visitors alike. On this occasion, the author lost his wife who had fallen ill when she learned of her young daughter's fate.

In September 1943, all bachelors and girls were taken to the SS-labour camp in Minsk; the married people and children were never heard of again. In vans said to be transporting 120 men each to the labour-places, the passengers were being killed by burnt gas (p.3).

The author was transferred to the Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke in Budztn, Poland (p.3-4). Ill-treatment by the German foremen; wretched conditions of life; vermin and epidemics (p.4). Loudspeakers recording music during the mass-murder of twenty thousand Jews, on 23 November 1943 (p.4). At Heinkels’ at Milec, a Hauptwachtmeister, late of a police-station at Frankfurt am Main, shot the Baracken-Älteste Zimmermann, because he found the place not clean enough; he was also responsible for cruel punishments and atrocities.

In July 1944, the author was transported to Welicka and in September was sent on a horrible transport to Mauthausen (p.4-6) which turned out to be worse than any of the dreadful places before. Doing incredibly heavy work in the quarry, rushed and beaten up constantly. Mass-murders. After three months, he was transported to the Hermann-Goring Works at the Camp of Linz of about two thousand men. Cruel ill-treatment. Public execution of three Russians who had tried to escape. Air-raid; a bomb killing 110 detainees at Block 13 (p.5). Starvation (p.6); frost; vermin. On 5 May 1945, the author was liberated by the Americans. The Spanish Legion. The Hermann-Goring-Lazarett (p.6).