Miss X. was living with her Aryan mother and Nazi stepfather in Breslau; had, on the whole, no unpleasant personal experiences. School (1941 last year of Abiturium for “Non-Aryans”). “Pflichtjahr” (instead of six months' Labour Service). Ration cards had to be fetched from a special centre for every household with a non-Aryan, which was compromising. She had to leave a position as a shop assistant in a music shop because it would bring her into contact with the general public.

In forced labour camp: Organisation Todt; Unternehmen Berthold; unpleasant circumstances; the author states cynical outlook on sexual behavior. She had a chance of marrying an Aryan Czech, i.e. “a man of inferior nationality” since her father had not received a University education; thus there was deemed to be little risk of her transmitting “Jewish intelligence” to her children.

Miss X. is now living in London with her Jewish father.

The daughter of a Jewish dental surgeon and his Christian wife reports on her experiences as a child in Berlin, during the time of the Nazi persecution.

Born in 1927, she attended a common primary school until the Kristallnacht, in November 1938. After ½ year in a Jewish school in 1939, she went to a Mischlings school which later was prohibited; she could then attend a special form at another Jewish school but was excused most of the time, as she had to help her parents in the surgery as well as in the household. A renewed application for 'Arisierung' was turned down, in 1940, and she had to leave school for good.

The Jewish Labour Exchange, Fontanestrasse (p.2) sent her to work at Martin Michalski, a workshop for uniforms, where she was paid RM 0, 30 per hour at 15 and RM 0,35 at 16 and 17. No bad treatment, but for occasionally rather risky errands (p.2-4). Extremely exciting summons; Kommissar Wenzel (p.4-8).

Here, the recorder has inserted a short report on the interviewee's mother (p.7-8). On 3 February 1945, the family's home was completely bombed out. After the War, the young girl attended a commercial course and later became employed at an office of the Jewish community in Berlin. In September 1948, she left the Evangelical Community and, in 1949, rejoined the Jewish Community (p.9).

The author, a Jewish dermatologist, has been living with his Christian wife in East Berlin for about 25 years. He had served in the First World War for a short time, after his brother had been killed in action. From April 1933, he was no longer qualified to work for the National Health Insurance (p.1) and had to move out of his flat. In the year 1938 he became “Judenbehandler“, i.e. he got permission to attend [illegible] Jews. His sister was deported and never heard of again, his mother fell ill of persecution mania and finally died of hunger in Theresienstadt (p.2); the beautiful furniture at her flat was stolen by an official who had been sent there on duty (p.6).

When the Gestapo turned up to arrest the author, he could hide in time. The men asked for his six year old son to take him instead of his father, but he was at school. Several times, the doctor had a narrow escape; at such an occasion, SS-men who were looking for deserters and Jews murdered fourteen Jews (p.3-4).

At a collection of arms, an officer pocketed the pistol Mrs. H. was delivering to the Police (p.5). Another time, she was summoned to the Police-Station and urged to divorce her husband; she refused in a wise and determined way (p.6).

Some Christian patients: Herr Frank, a decent man, though a member of the NSDAP (p.6-7); another patient became an antisemite after he had prospered through the situation; a well-off factory-owner who would pay most generously for the smallest advice (p.7).

Death of a lame old spinster who had served her Führer fanatically (p.7-8). The house in which the old maid voluntarily perished burnt down, and the doctor who had lived there, too, with his family, lost all their belongings. After the War, they started a new life and the doctor is still busy.

Dr. Elkan describes the friendliness of some rather prominent German. “Aryans” towards their Jewish fellow-citizens between 1933 - 1937. Among them Mr Funk (Funk A.G.); Mrs Heinzmann, former headmistress of a public school for girls (Duesseldorf); Dr. Lehr, Lord Mayor of Duesseldorf; Prof. Loos, director of the Dental Institute Carolinum, Frankfurt am Main, Generaldirektor Poensgen of the “Vereinigte Stahlwerke”. Interesting Photocopy of a letter (10 May 1935) from “Freiherr von Fritsch” (later “Chef der Heeresleitung”) to Dr. Elkan is added, whom Dr. Elkan got to know during the First World War with the 47 Reserved Division when he was head of the Dental Department. Also a photocopy of a letter from Count Helldorf, father of the notorious “Graf Helldorf”, former Polizeipraesident of Berlin (who was later hanged by the Nazis).

Only with the help of “Wirtschaftsberater” Dr. Schneider, Dr. Elkan was able to escape the chicanes of the Duesseldorfer Finanzamt and perform his emigration in 1937 sucessfully. Because of his helpful attitude to Jews Dr. Schneider later was put in a concentration camp.

A report by a 56-year-old author on his experience of six months at Dachau and one month at Buchenwald. The Nazis’ methodical education to hateful contempt, cruel ill-treatment and pitiless annihilation of the so-called ‘Untermenschen’.

Vivid description of life in Concentration Camp. The information is “packed” into many short chapters, each an interesting and significant cross section, but together forming a complete readable “film” on the subject.

The book is concerned with the best known camp Dachau, and the most dreaded one, Buchenwald. It is shown that Dachau, although rightly pictured as a living hell, was almost a paradise compared with Buchenwald.

It is emphasised that apart from the purpose of creating terror, another purpose of these Camps is to educate the Nazi youth to ruthless bestiality. It also shows that these Nazi methods at the same time educate unflinching, resolute enemies to Nazidom. Just as Germany's armament rearmed the entire world so their Concentration Camps not only crush, but also create deadly opposition. Ordinary people develop into determined fighters against Nazism. Whilst the book as such shows this development by describing the setting (as done classically in Dostojewsky's “Memoirs of a House of the Dead”).

As the author has been an editor and particularly a picture editor for twenty years and made it his task to observe and note everything in the Camp, he together with a draftsman could illustrate the book by line drawings in the most accurate manner if so desired.