This report is a sworn statement in which the author tells what he and his family experienced in Hamburg from 1933 - 1939. Later, his parents were deported to Poland, after he and his brother were taken to England with a Kindertransport.

The father was forced to give up one business after the other to Nazis, as well as his lodgings. After a car accident, in which he was gravely injured, he went to court, won the case, but did not get a compensation; the bill amounting to RM 2000 was paid by a friend of his. From September to November 1938 he was in Buchenwald.

The report describes the school surrounded by SS; some children beaten; the author and his brother were rescued by a non-Jewish lady and teachers were arrested. Two SS-men smashing up a synagogue fell to their deaths.

In 1947, the two brothers were naturalised in England and served subsequently five years each in the British Army, in Korea and Malaysia respectively. Unable to find the jobs which would secure their future, they are trying to save the money for emigration to Canada.

Dr. Rosenblatt was a Jewish prisoner of war (Polish Army) in Germany where Jews were kept apart from the rest of the prisoners under inferior conditions. After his release, Dr. Rosenblatt followed his parents who had escaped to a small ghetto in Poland. In 1942 all small ghettoes in Poland were dissolved and the Jews transferred to one big one. Out of 30,000 Jews, 27,000 were exterminated in Auschwitz. Some 600 Jews who had been living in hiding were rounded up in the Synagogue and shot by Germans and Ukrainians (p.3-4).

In 1943 the women were sent to Ravensbrück, the men to Buchenwald (p.6). After some time a new selection took place this time to a camp in Saxonia. At the beginning of 1945 new deportations took place to Theresienstadt. The inmates there shared their rations with the new arrivals whose physical conditions were most pitiful. After the liberation by the Russians, Dr. Rosenblatt was most impressed by the relief work of Jews, Russians and UNRRA allotted to the youth in the first place.

Original title: Bericht aus der Verfolgungszeit.

Recorded by: Dr. H. G. Adler

Original form and contents: Personal report of a young girl, born in 1927, from the Protestant Secondary School In Budapest. _ Prosecution began with the German occupation of Hungary, on the 19th March, 1944. Restrictions. Yellow Star (p.1,4) The “Avokatenliste” called the author’s father, together with abt. 300 solicitors and lawyers, to the internment camp Rökszilad utca, then to Magdolna utca, Horthyliget(Csepel), Kecskemt and lastly a camp unknown, probably Auschwitz; no survivor. Moving Into a “Jewish house“(June, 1944). Forced labour (throwing up entrenchments) at Ujpest, super - vised by Hungarian “Pfeilkr euzler“ most primitive youngsters (p.5). Marched to Austrian frontier; several people sent back to Budapest, as “Schutzpaesse“ arrived for them from foreign legations (p.6). On the frontier, the transport was taken over by SS; seven days’ journey of the men to Buchenwald, of the women on to Ravensbrueck; arrival 21st Nov. 1944 (p.7). Description in detail of the camp, holding abt.60.000 at the time (p.8-12). -”Blockaelteste” and assistants mostly antisemitic Polish women, but also wicked Slovak Jewesses. - Ill-famed gynaecological experiments. By lorry through burning Berlin (5th Dec.1944) to BENZ-DAIM- LER FLUGZEUGMOT0RENWERKE, GENSHAGEN, Kreis Teltow (p.ll-20). Among 1000 foreign women abt. 80 Jewesses, treated in a friendly way Supervisors SS women. Very long working hours. - Anti-Nazis among German workmen (p.17). - Increasing difficulties of the Works from February, 1945 (p.17-19). Transfer to camp Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen; ghastly experience of the Jewish women (p.20,21) and their transport back to RAVENSBRUECK; here the crematorium had been destroyed an hour earlier. Situation improved. - Red Cross parcels. - Evacuation on the 28th April, 1945 under escort of SS who shot at the German soldiers throwing chocolates and cigarettes to the prisoners passing by (p.23). On the 30th April, escape near MIROW (p.23-25). Freedom under RUSSIANS who proved very helpful (p.25-28). Adventurous journey to Budapest, partly on foot(p.27-29). Quarantine in Berlin because of typhoid fever (p.27). Arrival at home on the 2nd June; back to school, for a fortnight.

Mrs Valk and her husband were arrested on 10 December 1941 at Goch and deported to the Riga Ghetto. The men were soon taken to Salaspils where most of them perished. In the ghetto, Jews exchanged clothes against food provided by the Latvians; this transaction was punishable by death. Amongst the SS officers who carried out executions were Krause, Roschmann and Gimmlich. During the night, Latvian SS guards raped women and children in the ghetto. In February 1942, 1,500 elderly persons were deported from the ghetto; they ended in prepared mass graves in the forest.

Mrs Valk did various kinds of forced labour under horrible conditions. In August 1944 both Mr and Mrs Valk were brought by sea to Stutthof concentration camp, where inmates again suffered physical violence thirst and hunger. Afer 5 weeks Mrs Valk was detailed for work on the railway lines at Bromberg. “Reichsbahninspektor” Ballhorn and the female SS guard Gerda Hesper from Essen, are mentioned for their cruelty. In January 1945, the Russian army approached and the death march of concentration camp inmates began. Out of 1,300 women only 40 survived and arrived at Falkenburg, where Mrs Valk escaped. She made her way to Pommerania and pretended to be a German “OstflÜchtling”. She was, therefore, well fed and clothed. Finally she crossed the Elbe and reached the American army.

Mr Valk had been seperated from his wife at Stutthof; he went to Buchenwald and Theresienstadt. They met again in their native town of Gogh. Their child perished in Belsen or Auschwitz.

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.

Mr Larsch, a house-painter by profession but out of work at the time, was an active socialist. On 3 November 1933, he was arrested at Bielfeld and sentenced to penal servitude for three years. On 19 May 1935, his wife, mother of four children, was arrested at Essen; ill-treated by detective Schweim (later interned at Recklinghausen); sent to hospital, transferred to Düsseldorf, where she died on 29 May 1935; her smallest child was then three year old.

After his release from jail, Mr Larsch was interned at the police station at Düsseldorf, then sent to Buchenwald. Sadistic atrocities committed by Sommer (sentenced at Munich, 1958).

Free from 26 April 1939 until September 1939; from that time to the end of the War at Sachsenhausen. Foreman in brickyard. April 1945, most efficient bombing of a foundry: 300 dead, all of them prisoners - the free workmen could rush into safety. SS-Lagerführer Freesemann killed an officer who had bailed out of a plane. Ficke, Commander of “Totenkopfdivision.”

Evacuation and death march, April 1945. Destination was the Baltic Sea, where the prisoners should have been embarked and drowned. This was prevented by the quick arrival of the Allies, but many of the exhausted prisoners died on the march.

The author lived in Vienna as a partner and manager of the Austrian Fleischverwertungsgesellschaft (Import and export of meat). When the Nazis came, he lost his job immediately and, some wekes later, was arrested and detained in a school-building, Karajangasse, together with many other Jews, until 1 June,1938, when they - about three thousand - were sent from the Westbahnhof to München; they were horribly ill-treated, and twelve of thern died on the journey (p.2).

At Dachau, the author met some decent and even benevolent people among the SS (p.2-3); he stresses also the decency of two camp-doctors, Dr. Wohlrat and Dr. Bader, whilst the doctor-in-chief would behave beastly as well as all the other SS-men; cruel punishments; informing Blockälteste, especially Dr. Ziffer who was slain by some detainees, after the transfer to Buchenwald (p.3-4). At Buchenwald, conditions were most dreadful - typhoid fever (p.4).

The author who already at Dachau had been a patient at the sick-bay was taken to Sachsenhausen, where the camp-doctor was rightly feared as a devil. Constant bribes for Blockälteste and Kapos, corruptible and informers all of them (p.4).

When his wife sent him a sham-visa for Argentina, procured by the friendly Consul General at Vienna, the author was released and came via Italy to England (p.5).