Auschwitz - the grave of four million people. Slovakia, 1945 - first edition

Auschwitz - the grave of four million people. Slovakia, 1945 - first edition

Oswiencim, hrobka štyroch miliónov ľudí - Auschwitz - The grave of four million people - A brief history of life in the hell of Auschwitz in 1942-1945 by Jozko Lanik - a Jewish prisoner of the Auschwitz camp, who managed to escape and provide a detailed report to the Allies on the horrors of the camp during the months when the death machine operated in full force and saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews. SNR Publishing House - Slovakia, 1945 - First edition. Extremely rare. 

"In the following pages you will read about events that will hold your breath...". The author Alfréd Israel Wetzler, who wrote under the pseudonym Jozef Lánik, was a Slovak Jew, one of the few who managed to escape from the Auschwitz death camp. Wetzler was sent to the Birkenau (Auschwitz II) camp from Slovakia on 13 April 1942, where he managed to escape together with his friend Rudolf Verba on 7 April 1944. During their escape, Wetzler and his friend wrote the first detailed report ever written on what was happening in Auschwitz and presented it to the West. In the first part of the book is the testimony of Lánik, and in the second part is the testimony of his friend Rudolf Verba. The report includes the organizational structure of the camp, the exact location of the buildings, a detailed description of the gas chambers and how Jews were sent to their deaths, it described for the first time the crematoria and the activities of the Sonderkommado unit that dealt daily with the cremation of the bodies, the Nazis' use of Zyklon B gas for killing, the ways in which the Nazis concealed evidence of mass killing, the severe torture and punishments received by the prisoners, and more. Lánik was the first to report the gassing in the first transport of 8,000 Jews who arrived at Auschwitz from the Krakow ghetto. He described how during the first time the gas chambers operated, high-ranking German personalities from Berlin participated in the entire process, and how everyone participated in a festive ceremony marking the opening of the Birkenau crematorium. He was also the first to tell about the transport of 45,000 Jews who arrived from Salonika to Auschwitz in early April 1943. The report he provided to the Allies during the war was considered the first documentation which the Allies regarded as a credible report, and resulted in practical decisions following it. As a direct conclusion from the important information that appeared in Josef Lánik's report, the Allies took initiated actions that included the bombing of government buildings in Hungary, and the killing of Nazi officials responsible for the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz via the railways. As a result of this activity of the Allies, the deportations to the camps were halted, saving the lives of 120,000 Hungarian Jews.

The escape of the two is described in detail in the second part of the book. On one occasion when Himmler arrived at the camp, he declared that 1,500 prisoners were needed for fortification work in Poland. The two, who were strong in their bodies, were chosen for the mission. Because there were delays in departures and returns, they took advantage of the time to dig a covered pit near the camp. One day on their return from work, they simply entered a pit they had prepared in advance, covered it with a straw and waited in it for several days, constantly hearing the sirens in the camp reporting their disappearance, and the barking of dogs approaching the pit where they were staying. A few days later, late at night, they came out of the pit and walked towards the Vistula River. The two walked for ten days and nights, provided with food and water by a partisan whom they met on the way. A few days later, the two secretly crossed the Slovak border into freedom while a local farmer took care of their emaciated bodies, They meet the Allied soldiers on 6 June 1944 and tell them about the horrors of Auschwitz. The report itself on the horrors of Auschwitz, as provided to the American forces (which originally consisted of 32 pages with numbers, dates, names, and detailed descriptions) appears in the last part of the book, concluding the heroic story of the two.

The historian Sir Martin Gilbert writes: "Alfred Wetzler was a true hero. His escape from Auschwitz, and the report that he helped gather, which for the first time told the truth about the camp as a place of mass murder, directly led to the saving of the lives of thousands of Jews - the Jews of Budapest who were about to be deported to their deaths. No one other act in World War II saved so many Jews from the fate that Hitler had set for them." After the war, Wetzler worked as an editor in Bratislava from 1945 to 1950. He died in 1988.

On the cover is an illustration of Auschwitz crematorium chimneys, prisoners falling during roll call next to a German guarding soldier, and barbed wire (design: cechov).

Extremely rare! It does not appear in the National Library. And doesn't appear in the world catalog of libraries world cat.

73 p. 21 cm. Very good condition.