Only 7 Are Pictures of Letters.
Dearest Mother,
How are you? It feels like forever since I have seen
you. I hope to see you again, and so does Miriam. I know that it is wishful to
think you are still alive, but I can still believe it.
As you can see,
the Russians made it to Auschwitz. You should have seen the Nazis before they
arrived; it was as if they were chickens without heads! They weren’t paying
attention to us for the most part; it allowed me to escape for a few moments. I
returned because I couldn’t leave Miriam alone, but what I saw outside shocked
me. I went all the way to where there was a river, and on the other side there
was a girl. I was so jealous of that girl, with her hair and her nice dresses.
She was cleaner than I could remember being for years. She didn’t know how
lucky she was.
Miriam and I were left behind from the march. It was good
that we hid, because they were probably going to another camp; the officers
saving themselves. I wonder if the Russians found them too.
When they
came, we were all so excited. Miriam and I ran over to them, half in disbelief.
They gave us food, chocolates even! When was the last time you can remember
eating chocolate? It was like heaven.
The best part, though, was not
when the Russians actually got to the camp, but it was when somebody came
running in to our barrack, shouting that we were free. And now Mama, we are
free. Your daughters are
free.
Love,
Eva
How are you? It feels like forever since I have seen
you. I hope to see you again, and so does Miriam. I know that it is wishful to
think you are still alive, but I can still believe it.
As you can see,
the Russians made it to Auschwitz. You should have seen the Nazis before they
arrived; it was as if they were chickens without heads! They weren’t paying
attention to us for the most part; it allowed me to escape for a few moments. I
returned because I couldn’t leave Miriam alone, but what I saw outside shocked
me. I went all the way to where there was a river, and on the other side there
was a girl. I was so jealous of that girl, with her hair and her nice dresses.
She was cleaner than I could remember being for years. She didn’t know how
lucky she was.
Miriam and I were left behind from the march. It was good
that we hid, because they were probably going to another camp; the officers
saving themselves. I wonder if the Russians found them too.
When they
came, we were all so excited. Miriam and I ran over to them, half in disbelief.
They gave us food, chocolates even! When was the last time you can remember
eating chocolate? It was like heaven.
The best part, though, was not
when the Russians actually got to the camp, but it was when somebody came
running in to our barrack, shouting that we were free. And now Mama, we are
free. Your daughters are
free.
Love,
Eva
Dearest Family,
You are extremely lucky to be living freely as citizens
of the United States. I have been living in the ghetto, a sad place where I am
punished for being who I am. And for being who I am, I have paid a terrible
price. But I would not trade it for anything. However, I am content in thinking
that someone will hear my story.
I’m going to tell you stories of the
ghettos in hope that some day my story will be heard. If you did not know,
almost every city includes a ghetto. Another fact about the ghettos is that not
only are there Jews, but there are gypsies and anyone else who is against the
likes of Hitler. The ghettos are almost like another city filled with people
whom Hitler thought are outcasts.
I wonder every day when this war will
end. It’s not right to judge, or discriminate people just because you can or
because you want to. Do you know how many ghettos there are in the world? I know
for sure that there are very many. There are big ones and small ones.
The Lodz Ghetto seems to be quite scary. The Lodz ghetto held 160,000
Jews at one time. There was a man, named Chaim Rumkowski who was called the
‘Chairman of the Council’. He was to carry out the responsibilities of the
people in the Ghetto. He made the Jews work until they could not move a single
limb.
It’s very sad here. No one has much hope. The SS police patrol the
streets daily and nightly. I always feel trapped. But hopefully it will soon be
over! On the flipside of things, I have met many new people and made some
friends. Our neighbors, the Horton’s know someone who recently got deported to a
concentration camp. It seems as if more and more people are leaving every
day.
I’m scared but I know we will get through this. I’ve met some
gypsies that were some of the first to arrive here, at the ghetto, and they’ve
told me many stories on how it has evolved. It’s very interesting.
I’ve
always wondered where people go once they get deported from the ghettos. They
don’t let us read the newspapers here. After the deportations, the ghettos are
always quieter or noisier. Some hide, so as not to be seen by the police and get
deported, others go willingly thinking that their chance at survival is lost. I
think that everyone has a chance if they are willing to fight for it. No one
that I know has left yet. But it will probably be soon. Many of the gypsies have
been deported- about 1,000 people.
In all I am doing quite well. It’s a
little overwhelming at times but I’m making it through. I hope you take this
letter and keep it forever so that if I don’t make it, you’ll be able to tell my
story. The ghettos are getting smaller. The number of ghettos is increasing. And
people are leaving every day. I hope you take time to consider this as a tribute
to all those who have left. May there be peace between these countries once
more.
Sincerely,
Your loving daughter
You are extremely lucky to be living freely as citizens
of the United States. I have been living in the ghetto, a sad place where I am
punished for being who I am. And for being who I am, I have paid a terrible
price. But I would not trade it for anything. However, I am content in thinking
that someone will hear my story.
I’m going to tell you stories of the
ghettos in hope that some day my story will be heard. If you did not know,
almost every city includes a ghetto. Another fact about the ghettos is that not
only are there Jews, but there are gypsies and anyone else who is against the
likes of Hitler. The ghettos are almost like another city filled with people
whom Hitler thought are outcasts.
I wonder every day when this war will
end. It’s not right to judge, or discriminate people just because you can or
because you want to. Do you know how many ghettos there are in the world? I know
for sure that there are very many. There are big ones and small ones.
The Lodz Ghetto seems to be quite scary. The Lodz ghetto held 160,000
Jews at one time. There was a man, named Chaim Rumkowski who was called the
‘Chairman of the Council’. He was to carry out the responsibilities of the
people in the Ghetto. He made the Jews work until they could not move a single
limb.
It’s very sad here. No one has much hope. The SS police patrol the
streets daily and nightly. I always feel trapped. But hopefully it will soon be
over! On the flipside of things, I have met many new people and made some
friends. Our neighbors, the Horton’s know someone who recently got deported to a
concentration camp. It seems as if more and more people are leaving every
day.
I’m scared but I know we will get through this. I’ve met some
gypsies that were some of the first to arrive here, at the ghetto, and they’ve
told me many stories on how it has evolved. It’s very interesting.
I’ve
always wondered where people go once they get deported from the ghettos. They
don’t let us read the newspapers here. After the deportations, the ghettos are
always quieter or noisier. Some hide, so as not to be seen by the police and get
deported, others go willingly thinking that their chance at survival is lost. I
think that everyone has a chance if they are willing to fight for it. No one
that I know has left yet. But it will probably be soon. Many of the gypsies have
been deported- about 1,000 people.
In all I am doing quite well. It’s a
little overwhelming at times but I’m making it through. I hope you take this
letter and keep it forever so that if I don’t make it, you’ll be able to tell my
story. The ghettos are getting smaller. The number of ghettos is increasing. And
people are leaving every day. I hope you take time to consider this as a tribute
to all those who have left. May there be peace between these countries once
more.
Sincerely,
Your loving daughter
It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise
within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't
abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to
them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly
good at heart. It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation
of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a
wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too,
I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow
feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall
end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must
hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize
them!
--The Diary of a Young Girl, eds. Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler,
p. 332
Dear Mother and Father,
You have, by this time, received a letter mentioning that I am quartered in
the concentration camp at Dachau. It is still undecided whether we will be
permitted to describe the conditions here, but I'm writing this now to tell you
a little, and will mail it later when we are told we can.
It is difficult to know how to begin. By this time I have recovered from my
first emotional shock and am able to write without seeming like a hysterical
gibbering idiot. Yet, I know you will hesitate to believe me no matter how
objective and factual I try to be. I even find myself trying to deny what I am
looking at with my own eyes. Certainly, what I have seen in the past few days
will affect my personality for the rest of my life.
We knew a day or two before we moved that we were going to operate in Dachau,
and that it was the location of one of the most notorious concentration camps,
but while we expected things to be grizzly, I'm sure none of us knew what was
coming. It is easy to read about atrocities, but they must be seen before they
can be believed. To think that I once scoffed at Valtin's "Out of the Night" as
being preposterous! I've seen worse
To the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the
All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik)
We appeal to you, asking you to pay a minimum of attention
to our request.
We are prisoners who are returning from the Solovetsky
concentration camp because of our poor health. We went there
full of energy and good health, and now we are returning as
invalids, broken and crippled emotionally and physically. We are
asking you to draw your attention to the arbitrary use of power and
the violence that reign at the Solovetsky concentration camp in Kemi
and in all sections of the concentration camp.
It is difficult for a human being
even to imagine such terror, tyranny violence, and lawlessness.
When we went there, we could not
conceive of such a horror, and now we, crippled ourselves,
together with several thousands who are still there, appeal to
the ruling center of the Soviet state to curb the terror that
reigns there. As though it weren't enough that the Unified State
Political Directorate [OGPU] without oversight and due process
sends workers and peasants there who are by and large innocent
(we are not talking about criminals who deserve to be punished),
the former tsarist penal servitude system in comparison to
Solovky had 99% more humanity, fairness, and legality. [...]
People die like flies, i.e., they die a slow and painful
death; we repeat that all this torment and suffering is placed
only on the shoulders of the proletariat without money, i.e., on
workers who, we repeat, were unfortunate to find themselves in
the period of hunger and destruction accompanying the events of the
October Revolution, and who committed crimes only to save themselves and
their families from death by starvation; they have already
borne the punishment for these crimes, and the vast
majority of them subsequently chose the path of honest labor.
Now because of their past, for whose crime they have already
paid, they are fired from their jobs. Yet, the main thing is
that the entire weight of this scandalous abuse of power, brute
violence, and lawlessness that reign at Solovky and other sections
of the OGPU concentration camp is placed on the
shoulders of workers and peasants; others, such as
counterrevolutionaries, profiteers and so on, have full wallets
and have set themselves up and live in clover in the Soviet
State, while next to them, in the literal meaning of the word the
penniless proletariat dies from hunger, cold, and back-
breaking 14-16 hour days under the tyranny and
lawlessness of inmates who are the agents and
collaborators of the State Political Directorate
[GPU].
If you complain or write anything ("Heaven forbid"), they
will frame you for an attempted escape or for something else, and
they will shoot you like a dog. They line us up naked and
barefoot at 22 degrees below zero and keep us outside for up to
an hour. It is difficult to describe all the chaos and terror
that is going on in Kemi, Solovky, and the other sections of the
concentrations camp. All annual inspections uncover a lot of
abuses. But what they discover in comparison to what actually
exists is only a part of the horror and abuse of power, which the
inspection accidently uncovers. (One example is the following
fact, one of a thousand, which is registered in GPU and for which
the guilty have been punished: THEY FORCED THE INMATES TO EAT
THEIR OWN FECES. "Comrades," if we dare to use this phrase,
verify that this
is a fact from reality, about which, we repeat,
OGPU has the official
evidence, and judge for yourself the full
extent of effrontery and
humiliation in the supervision by those
who want to make a career for
themselves. [...]
We are sure and we hope
that in the All-Union Communist
Party there are people, as we have been told,
who are humane and
sympathetic; it is possible, that you might think that it is our
imagination, but we swear to you all, by everything that is sacred
to us, that this is only one small part of the nightmarish
truth, because it
makes no sense to make this up. We repeat, and
will repeat 100 times,
that yes, indeed there are some guilty
people, but the majority suffer
innocently, as is described
above. The word law, according to the law of the GPU
concentration camps, does not exist; what does exist is only the
autocratic power of petty tyrants, i.e., collaborators, serving time,
who have power over life and death. Everything described
above is the truth and we,
ourselves, who are close to the grave
after 3 years in Solovky
and Kemi and other sections, are asking
you to improve the pathetic, tortured
existence of those who are
there who languish under the yoke of the OGPU's
tyranny, violence, and complete lawlessness....
To this we
subscribe: G. Zheleznov, Vinogradov, F. Belinskii
within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't
abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to
them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly
good at heart. It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation
of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a
wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too,
I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow
feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall
end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must
hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize
them!
--The Diary of a Young Girl, eds. Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler,
p. 332
Dear Mother and Father,
You have, by this time, received a letter mentioning that I am quartered in
the concentration camp at Dachau. It is still undecided whether we will be
permitted to describe the conditions here, but I'm writing this now to tell you
a little, and will mail it later when we are told we can.
It is difficult to know how to begin. By this time I have recovered from my
first emotional shock and am able to write without seeming like a hysterical
gibbering idiot. Yet, I know you will hesitate to believe me no matter how
objective and factual I try to be. I even find myself trying to deny what I am
looking at with my own eyes. Certainly, what I have seen in the past few days
will affect my personality for the rest of my life.
We knew a day or two before we moved that we were going to operate in Dachau,
and that it was the location of one of the most notorious concentration camps,
but while we expected things to be grizzly, I'm sure none of us knew what was
coming. It is easy to read about atrocities, but they must be seen before they
can be believed. To think that I once scoffed at Valtin's "Out of the Night" as
being preposterous! I've seen worse
To the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the
All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik)
We appeal to you, asking you to pay a minimum of attention
to our request.
We are prisoners who are returning from the Solovetsky
concentration camp because of our poor health. We went there
full of energy and good health, and now we are returning as
invalids, broken and crippled emotionally and physically. We are
asking you to draw your attention to the arbitrary use of power and
the violence that reign at the Solovetsky concentration camp in Kemi
and in all sections of the concentration camp.
It is difficult for a human being
even to imagine such terror, tyranny violence, and lawlessness.
When we went there, we could not
conceive of such a horror, and now we, crippled ourselves,
together with several thousands who are still there, appeal to
the ruling center of the Soviet state to curb the terror that
reigns there. As though it weren't enough that the Unified State
Political Directorate [OGPU] without oversight and due process
sends workers and peasants there who are by and large innocent
(we are not talking about criminals who deserve to be punished),
the former tsarist penal servitude system in comparison to
Solovky had 99% more humanity, fairness, and legality. [...]
People die like flies, i.e., they die a slow and painful
death; we repeat that all this torment and suffering is placed
only on the shoulders of the proletariat without money, i.e., on
workers who, we repeat, were unfortunate to find themselves in
the period of hunger and destruction accompanying the events of the
October Revolution, and who committed crimes only to save themselves and
their families from death by starvation; they have already
borne the punishment for these crimes, and the vast
majority of them subsequently chose the path of honest labor.
Now because of their past, for whose crime they have already
paid, they are fired from their jobs. Yet, the main thing is
that the entire weight of this scandalous abuse of power, brute
violence, and lawlessness that reign at Solovky and other sections
of the OGPU concentration camp is placed on the
shoulders of workers and peasants; others, such as
counterrevolutionaries, profiteers and so on, have full wallets
and have set themselves up and live in clover in the Soviet
State, while next to them, in the literal meaning of the word the
penniless proletariat dies from hunger, cold, and back-
breaking 14-16 hour days under the tyranny and
lawlessness of inmates who are the agents and
collaborators of the State Political Directorate
[GPU].
If you complain or write anything ("Heaven forbid"), they
will frame you for an attempted escape or for something else, and
they will shoot you like a dog. They line us up naked and
barefoot at 22 degrees below zero and keep us outside for up to
an hour. It is difficult to describe all the chaos and terror
that is going on in Kemi, Solovky, and the other sections of the
concentrations camp. All annual inspections uncover a lot of
abuses. But what they discover in comparison to what actually
exists is only a part of the horror and abuse of power, which the
inspection accidently uncovers. (One example is the following
fact, one of a thousand, which is registered in GPU and for which
the guilty have been punished: THEY FORCED THE INMATES TO EAT
THEIR OWN FECES. "Comrades," if we dare to use this phrase,
verify that this
is a fact from reality, about which, we repeat,
OGPU has the official
evidence, and judge for yourself the full
extent of effrontery and
humiliation in the supervision by those
who want to make a career for
themselves. [...]
We are sure and we hope
that in the All-Union Communist
Party there are people, as we have been told,
who are humane and
sympathetic; it is possible, that you might think that it is our
imagination, but we swear to you all, by everything that is sacred
to us, that this is only one small part of the nightmarish
truth, because it
makes no sense to make this up. We repeat, and
will repeat 100 times,
that yes, indeed there are some guilty
people, but the majority suffer
innocently, as is described
above. The word law, according to the law of the GPU
concentration camps, does not exist; what does exist is only the
autocratic power of petty tyrants, i.e., collaborators, serving time,
who have power over life and death. Everything described
above is the truth and we,
ourselves, who are close to the grave
after 3 years in Solovky
and Kemi and other sections, are asking
you to improve the pathetic, tortured
existence of those who are
there who languish under the yoke of the OGPU's
tyranny, violence, and complete lawlessness....
To this we
subscribe: G. Zheleznov, Vinogradov, F. Belinskii
Dear mother,
I'm in Auschwitz right now i am in my room at 12:00 a.m. I wish you
were here to comfort me. My leg is cut open and my other leg is broken i don't
know if ill make it so this is why i am writing to you today. I saw hitler he had
a huge whip and he whipped me also. That is how i got my cut now. The rooms, they
look nasty and its very cold, but the people I am with are very kind. Now our
clothing is just stripes. Death... I've seen many people being shot and someone in
my room went in the gas chamber and he never came out. The food, well, we don't eat,
and are (our) ribs are poking out. Now mom, please try to make it through this. Also, if
you were wondering how I wrote this letter, well lets just say I know a guy
May 6 1940,
Sam
I'm in Auschwitz right now i am in my room at 12:00 a.m. I wish you
were here to comfort me. My leg is cut open and my other leg is broken i don't
know if ill make it so this is why i am writing to you today. I saw hitler he had
a huge whip and he whipped me also. That is how i got my cut now. The rooms, they
look nasty and its very cold, but the people I am with are very kind. Now our
clothing is just stripes. Death... I've seen many people being shot and someone in
my room went in the gas chamber and he never came out. The food, well, we don't eat,
and are (our) ribs are poking out. Now mom, please try to make it through this. Also, if
you were wondering how I wrote this letter, well lets just say I know a guy
May 6 1940,
Sam
My dear, sweet Butzel!
Once in a while there’s a small ray of light in my
bleak daily routine in this concentration camp business. This afternoon at 4pm
I was ordered to the commanding officer, and I was awarded a medal
(Kriegsverdienstkreuz, second degree with swords). Even though this is not a
rare honor, and even though I already possess more valuable decorations, I was
touched by the acknowledgement of my work and my dedication. My work sometimes
jeopardizes my own health and even my life; therefore I was very appreciative.
(You can see my dear Butzele that the medals are coming in slowly one after
another to stay on this hero’s chest!!) I was supposed to get it on 4.20.44,
the Führer’s birthday, but I wasn’t here since I was home with you. Dr. Thilo
got the same honor; we now call it the “typhus medal.”
When I came back
they were already waiting for me with 3 bottles of wine and one bottle of
champagne. I was with a group of nice people (Fircher, Frank, Wussow, plus
their wives), and we drank whatever we had. During our gathering I also raised
a glass to Rolf and his lovely Butzele.
I’m doing okay so far. My work
is going ahead, but I’ve decided that I want to be altogether more reclusive.
Berlin doesn’t suit me. I’m feeling better now, but after the long hours on the
train my legs were swollen. I will check myself into the field hospital later
for a thorough examination. Berlin was quite cold. Especially sister Emmi took
good care of me. Schade used every moment of his free time to be around me. I
had plenty of time to talk to Olaf about everything.
I have already
mentioned my visit to Lambertz to you. He is still the same: He pretends to be
audacious, but in reality he is just shy and inhibited. He still hasn’t found a
nice girl, even though he has a casual relationship with a waitress. (Please
keep this to yourself, and never, ever let him know that I told you!) I want to
introduce him to Schlicks. Maybe Mrs. Schlicks can introduce him to nice girls
that she knows or something like that!
How are you, Butzele, and how is the boy?
I hope everything is just fine. I’m sending kisses from me to both of you.
Yours, Papili.
Once in a while there’s a small ray of light in my
bleak daily routine in this concentration camp business. This afternoon at 4pm
I was ordered to the commanding officer, and I was awarded a medal
(Kriegsverdienstkreuz, second degree with swords). Even though this is not a
rare honor, and even though I already possess more valuable decorations, I was
touched by the acknowledgement of my work and my dedication. My work sometimes
jeopardizes my own health and even my life; therefore I was very appreciative.
(You can see my dear Butzele that the medals are coming in slowly one after
another to stay on this hero’s chest!!) I was supposed to get it on 4.20.44,
the Führer’s birthday, but I wasn’t here since I was home with you. Dr. Thilo
got the same honor; we now call it the “typhus medal.”
When I came back
they were already waiting for me with 3 bottles of wine and one bottle of
champagne. I was with a group of nice people (Fircher, Frank, Wussow, plus
their wives), and we drank whatever we had. During our gathering I also raised
a glass to Rolf and his lovely Butzele.
I’m doing okay so far. My work
is going ahead, but I’ve decided that I want to be altogether more reclusive.
Berlin doesn’t suit me. I’m feeling better now, but after the long hours on the
train my legs were swollen. I will check myself into the field hospital later
for a thorough examination. Berlin was quite cold. Especially sister Emmi took
good care of me. Schade used every moment of his free time to be around me. I
had plenty of time to talk to Olaf about everything.
I have already
mentioned my visit to Lambertz to you. He is still the same: He pretends to be
audacious, but in reality he is just shy and inhibited. He still hasn’t found a
nice girl, even though he has a casual relationship with a waitress. (Please
keep this to yourself, and never, ever let him know that I told you!) I want to
introduce him to Schlicks. Maybe Mrs. Schlicks can introduce him to nice girls
that she knows or something like that!
How are you, Butzele, and how is the boy?
I hope everything is just fine. I’m sending kisses from me to both of you.
Yours, Papili.
Auschwitz 0/S
Concentration Camp SS Precinct
SS Doctor Mengele
Auschwitz, 12.14.44
My beloved Butzele!
Your
letters from November 29th, December 8th and December 9th have arrived. I thank
you for them from the very bottom of my heart. In these letters you address the
question of our moving, and I’m glad to see that we agree on major points that
we have to consider. The date is the only thing that’s difficult. You don’t
want to come for Christmas; you prefer the time after the Holidays. I don’t
think that’s a good idea since the days before the holidays are really bad to
start your journey. It would also mean that we’re once again not together on
Christmas Eve!
Naturally, I cannot come to visit you, and I won’t be
able to pick you up. I might be able to ask Wirths to send a nurse to travel
with you. But I know you understand that I would like to avoid asking him. Do
you really think it’s impossible for Karl to come along? Or maybe your father?
If it looks like he’s being evacuated, they will have to give him a travel
permit! I forwarded your wishes to our man who’s responsible for housing
(Wilks). I think your requests will be met.
It’s too bad that you didn’t
decide earlier, since you had planned on being here by now. But since it takes
such a long time to send mail nowadays, you have to decide and act on your own.
This letter will probably reach you after you started your journey. It would be
awful if you weren’t able to come at all! Perhaps, and this is what I hope, you
got the letter that Dr. Precht carried with him, and I hope the letter helped
you to make a quick decision to come as soon as possible. Maybe my telegram
could have had the same effect?! That would’ve been beautiful!
Please
send my regards to everybody, and let me kiss you.
Yours,
Butz.
Why haven’t I heard anything about Loes? Do you know how he’s
doing?
Concentration Camp SS Precinct
SS Doctor Mengele
Auschwitz, 12.14.44
My beloved Butzele!
Your
letters from November 29th, December 8th and December 9th have arrived. I thank
you for them from the very bottom of my heart. In these letters you address the
question of our moving, and I’m glad to see that we agree on major points that
we have to consider. The date is the only thing that’s difficult. You don’t
want to come for Christmas; you prefer the time after the Holidays. I don’t
think that’s a good idea since the days before the holidays are really bad to
start your journey. It would also mean that we’re once again not together on
Christmas Eve!
Naturally, I cannot come to visit you, and I won’t be
able to pick you up. I might be able to ask Wirths to send a nurse to travel
with you. But I know you understand that I would like to avoid asking him. Do
you really think it’s impossible for Karl to come along? Or maybe your father?
If it looks like he’s being evacuated, they will have to give him a travel
permit! I forwarded your wishes to our man who’s responsible for housing
(Wilks). I think your requests will be met.
It’s too bad that you didn’t
decide earlier, since you had planned on being here by now. But since it takes
such a long time to send mail nowadays, you have to decide and act on your own.
This letter will probably reach you after you started your journey. It would be
awful if you weren’t able to come at all! Perhaps, and this is what I hope, you
got the letter that Dr. Precht carried with him, and I hope the letter helped
you to make a quick decision to come as soon as possible. Maybe my telegram
could have had the same effect?! That would’ve been beautiful!
Please
send my regards to everybody, and let me kiss you.
Yours,
Butz.
Why haven’t I heard anything about Loes? Do you know how he’s
doing?
Addressed to;
Josef
Novy
Bakery
Domazlice
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
From:
My Address: Prisoner
Name: Josef Novy
Date
of Birth: 27th April 1911
Prisoner Number: 73,034. Block 9a, Concentration
Camp Auschwitz, Post Office II
Auschwitz, 14th February 1943
My dear ones!
I’m in good health, and I’m alright - I hope the
same applies to you. I’ve received 3 letters and 6 parcels from you recently -
all in good shape. Letters and parcels may not be sent registered, just send the
parcels as per the first ones. The first parcels made me very happy -
particularly the chocolate honey and the many sweets - please send more like
that. My brother Jarde and aunt Milka could also send me packages - I would be
very grateful. Send the money as I previously asked you, i.e., RM 40.- per
month.
From now on I shall only be allowed to write
once a month. Your lovely letters are a source of great happiness, and I look
forward to receiving more. Please don’t forget to send me garlic, onions, and
enough sugar. I thank you for everything you have done for me, and I hope that
you will not forget about me. I’m always with you in my thoughts, and am
looking forward to seeing you again. Please give my regards to all friends and
relations, especially the Faila family.
Your thankful son,
Josef
PS. You can send parcels frequently.
Josef
Novy
Bakery
Domazlice
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
From:
My Address: Prisoner
Name: Josef Novy
Date
of Birth: 27th April 1911
Prisoner Number: 73,034. Block 9a, Concentration
Camp Auschwitz, Post Office II
Auschwitz, 14th February 1943
My dear ones!
I’m in good health, and I’m alright - I hope the
same applies to you. I’ve received 3 letters and 6 parcels from you recently -
all in good shape. Letters and parcels may not be sent registered, just send the
parcels as per the first ones. The first parcels made me very happy -
particularly the chocolate honey and the many sweets - please send more like
that. My brother Jarde and aunt Milka could also send me packages - I would be
very grateful. Send the money as I previously asked you, i.e., RM 40.- per
month.
From now on I shall only be allowed to write
once a month. Your lovely letters are a source of great happiness, and I look
forward to receiving more. Please don’t forget to send me garlic, onions, and
enough sugar. I thank you for everything you have done for me, and I hope that
you will not forget about me. I’m always with you in my thoughts, and am
looking forward to seeing you again. Please give my regards to all friends and
relations, especially the Faila family.
Your thankful son,
Josef
PS. You can send parcels frequently.
"Mein Liebes Tschapperl,
Don't worry about me. I'm fine though perhaps a little tired. I
hope to come home soon and then I can rest in your arms. I have a great longing
for rest, but my duty to the German people comes before everything else. Don't
forget that the dangers I encounter don't compare with those of our soldiers at
the Front. I thank you for the proof of your affection and ask you also to
thank your esteemed father and your most gracious mother for their greetings
and good wishes. I am very proud of the honor - please tell them that - to
possess the love of girl who comes from such a distinguished family. I have
sent to you the uniform I was wearing during the unfortunate day. It is proof
that Providence has protected me and that we have nothing more to fear from our
enemies.
From my whole heart, your A.H."
Don't worry about me. I'm fine though perhaps a little tired. I
hope to come home soon and then I can rest in your arms. I have a great longing
for rest, but my duty to the German people comes before everything else. Don't
forget that the dangers I encounter don't compare with those of our soldiers at
the Front. I thank you for the proof of your affection and ask you also to
thank your esteemed father and your most gracious mother for their greetings
and good wishes. I am very proud of the honor - please tell them that - to
possess the love of girl who comes from such a distinguished family. I have
sent to you the uniform I was wearing during the unfortunate day. It is proof
that Providence has protected me and that we have nothing more to fear from our
enemies.
From my whole heart, your A.H."
"Geliebter,
I am beside myself. I am dying of anxiety now that I know you are
in danger. Come back as soon as possible. I feel as if I am going
insane.
The weather is beautiful here and everything seems so peaceful
that I am ashamed of myself ... You know I have always told you that I would
die if anything happened to you. From our first meeting on, I have promised
myself to follow you wherever you go, even to death. You know that I live only
for your love.
Yours Eva"
I am beside myself. I am dying of anxiety now that I know you are
in danger. Come back as soon as possible. I feel as if I am going
insane.
The weather is beautiful here and everything seems so peaceful
that I am ashamed of myself ... You know I have always told you that I would
die if anything happened to you. From our first meeting on, I have promised
myself to follow you wherever you go, even to death. You know that I live only
for your love.
Yours Eva"
Auschwitz, February 16th, 1942
Dear Walter,
You really surprised me, first of all, with your letter
and second, with your announcement. I congratulate you on the results of your
medical test for military service. If you want to join the air force that much,
I won't spoil it for you and will send back the paper for you with my
signature. I hope you get lucky with that as well, my friend. I take it for
granted that you have to sign up only for the duration of the war. What
happened to the other comrades who took the test? By the way, what did your
mother think about your plan? She won't be too excited about it. You wrote that
you will take your final examinations soon. Do the best you can to get a high
score because if you want to succeed in life you must be able to do something.
How did your examinations in vocational school go? Here it is a hellish mess,
everything is upside down. They have built a village of barracks, and they are
not small --on average some twelve to fourteen rooms per barrack and each is
about six to seven meters long and about four and a half to five meters wide,
with a nice corridor in the middle. Wehave five men to a room. Each of us has
his own desk and closet for coats, office jackets, hats. They also have a
concentration camp here with about 50,000 convicts. They all wear black and
white striped suits. Most of them are Polish, but also German. Among the Polish
are many men of the more intelligent class. They will keep them here on
purpose. With these people we can get anything done, especially since many of
them have learned a trade. Each one is working in his own trade. In the camp
there are a furniture workshop, a sawmill, concrete shop, etc. In Poland, just
one false move, and it is a striped suit. Break a leg and friendly
greetings.
Your father
Dear Walter,
You really surprised me, first of all, with your letter
and second, with your announcement. I congratulate you on the results of your
medical test for military service. If you want to join the air force that much,
I won't spoil it for you and will send back the paper for you with my
signature. I hope you get lucky with that as well, my friend. I take it for
granted that you have to sign up only for the duration of the war. What
happened to the other comrades who took the test? By the way, what did your
mother think about your plan? She won't be too excited about it. You wrote that
you will take your final examinations soon. Do the best you can to get a high
score because if you want to succeed in life you must be able to do something.
How did your examinations in vocational school go? Here it is a hellish mess,
everything is upside down. They have built a village of barracks, and they are
not small --on average some twelve to fourteen rooms per barrack and each is
about six to seven meters long and about four and a half to five meters wide,
with a nice corridor in the middle. Wehave five men to a room. Each of us has
his own desk and closet for coats, office jackets, hats. They also have a
concentration camp here with about 50,000 convicts. They all wear black and
white striped suits. Most of them are Polish, but also German. Among the Polish
are many men of the more intelligent class. They will keep them here on
purpose. With these people we can get anything done, especially since many of
them have learned a trade. Each one is working in his own trade. In the camp
there are a furniture workshop, a sawmill, concrete shop, etc. In Poland, just
one false move, and it is a striped suit. Break a leg and friendly
greetings.
Your father
Dear national leaders and friends,
At the age of 80, my time on earth is limited and so I feel an
urgent need to share what is in my heart about the frightening and historically
similar conditions in today’s U.S. Military to those I had to live through
during the Holocaust. These ominous trends were brought to my attention by Mikey
Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). I
applaud Mikey’s tenacity and bravery in his efforts to expose the stealthy
fundamentalist takeover attempt of our armed forces, a strategy all too
reminiscent of what brought the end of my family’s life in pre-war Poland. If
there is one gift I can hope to leave my three daughters and five grandchildren,
it is that their father and grandfather, in joining forces with MRFF, did his
part in standing up to this clear and present danger...a danger which the
greater population sadly seems all too willing to ignore. My words are
motivated not only by a lifelong anger towards the perpetrators who annihilated
my family and my people, but also towards those who knowingly sat by and watched
the horrors of the Holocaust unfurl and did nothing to stop them. It is my
determined hope that when you help MRFF’s cause, neither my children nor
grandchildren will ever have to experience the things I went through during my
youth in the Nazi death and concentration camps.
America is
different from other nations thanks to our magnificent Constitution, which
specifically prohibits any sort of “religious test” for all Federal offices, and
that most certainly includes the military! Our founders understood the need for
a distinct separation between Church and State because of the things they had
witnessed in Europe and the new American colonies. As James Madison so often
and eloquently wrote, it is precisely the manifest separation of Church and
State that strengthens our citizens' most fundamental religious rights. In the
America to which I so gratefully immigrated, all religions were allowed to
flourish and NONE were permitted to be specifically, or even indirectly, favored
or "recommended by the state.” Personally, I have lived through the Inferno that
sprang up in a country that rejected such separation.
My
memories of the Holocaust remain all too vivid in my mind. The dark red and
black columns of flame and smoke that I saw upon my night-time arrival at
Auschwitz-Birkenau haunt my dreams even with the stench of burning human flesh
included. I remember not saying goodbye to my mother upon hearing the SS and
the Kapos, dogs at their side, command, "Men right! Women left!” My father had
previously explained to me that any woman with a child was as good as dead in
Auschwitz. I remember not being given a tattoo because, by the summer of 1944,
the Nazis no longer deemed it economically worth the ink; the average life
expectancy there being but two weeks by then.
Prior to
Auschwitz I spent 3 1/2 years in the Lódz ghetto, actually an urban
concentration-camp. In less than three years the Jewish population there went
from approximately 200,000 to no more than 30,000 by the time the ghetto was
being "liquidated" in June 1944. My family and I were among the last to give up
our hiding place on the edges of the ghetto when we surrendered to be
transported to Auschwitz in early August 1944.
Regardless of
the horrors of Auschwitz and other concentration camps that I lived through, I
still consider the Lodz Ghetto to have been the more emotionally difficult one
to live through. In the ghetto, we still lived in family units, visited
relatives and friends, and continued some social interactions with
acquaintances, even though we existed on 600 calories a day if we were lucky.
Deaths from tuberculosis, dysentery and typhus were daily occurrences as were
frequent, random German military shootings in the streets. Mothers were forced
to watch their children die of starvation and spouses watched each other starve.
I remember seeing the bodies of some of my school friends lying still on the
sidewalk. But at least in the ghetto, I could still feel. At least here, tears
still ran down our faces, we cried for our loved ones and felt sorrow for
strangers. Such personal grief disappeared completely in the concentration
camps.
After surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau for almost 6 weeks
(three average life expectancies for there!) my father, my brother, and I
managed to find our way onto a transport to the "work camps in Germany," a
statistical miracle, since the Birkenau regulations were that no one under the
age of fifteen was to leave alive. The next punishment we suffered for being
born of the ‘wrong’ religion consisted of stays in seven Dachau sub-camps (where
in one, Riederloh, my father was beaten to death with a shovel by the camp's
commandant in January, 1945). In the main Dachau-1 camp I narrowly escaped
death from becoming a guinea pig for malaria experiments.
After one unsuccessful escape attempt, my brother and
I finally managed to escape in mid-April 1945 from Dachau-2 (Karlsfeld), were
"captured" by an American infantry patrol and taken to their battalion field
headquarters. There a Polish-speaking sergeant from Chicago explained our
origins to the GIs and we were "issued" fatigue uniforms, making of us instant
micro GIs, or mascots of U.S. Army.
My brother came to United States in early 1946 while I
remained a U.S. Army mascot and civilian employee until the spring of 1947. I
had had a belly full of Europe by then and stowed away successfully from
Cherbourg, France, on a freighter headed for New York. After spending six months
on Ellis Island, I was eventually released and "legalized" by an Act of the
United States Congress “in recognition of my services to the U.S. Army in
Europe.” After President Truman signed this Act, I finally became a free man in
America. I volunteered for United States Air Force one year later, spending
about four years in the service during the Korean Conflict. After my honorable
discharge I embarked to pursue the American Dream. I am now retired after a
career in several private industry firms, extended civil service with NOAA and
eventually owning my own company in Boulder, Colorado. It should be clear to all
who read this why I love America.
The Plywacki family of Poland is no
more. Of the 200 members of my extended family only four survived the
de-Judaizing German rule in Poland. Of those four, only my brother William and I
remain alive. The other survivors were two maiden aunts who eluded the Germans
in Warsaw with falsified "Aryan" (i.e. Christian) identity papers. They were
ultimately denounced to the Gestapo for $20 by a bounty-hunter for hidden Jews.
Somehow they managed to survive many months of torture and died in Poland after
the war by 1963.
Like every society, the United States has its own
extreme fundamentalists and bigots, just as some dogs have fleas. Most
frighteningly, there has been a concerted drive to infiltrate the military by
these very fundamentalists who believe in the superiority of their very
dangerous brand of Christianity. It is a brand that, in its evangelism,
telegraphs a Crusader agenda abroad while attempting to coerce the rank and file
to adhere literally to their Bible. Just as in caring for your pet you would
immediately deal with the fleas, so too must we, as a society, stand firmly
behind the Constitution in ferreting out those who wish to eradicate the wall of
separation between Church and State.
If my words have convinced even
one of you to stand up and take note, then please give Mr. Weinstein all the
financial support you can, become his advocate with friends, neighbors and most
important of all, the media, then perhaps what I had to endure in my youth will
not have been in vain. I, who have seen the takeover of a country, and have
seen humans go mad with hatred and bloodlust, can only hope that Americans will
awaken to this danger and put an end to the usurpation of power in our military
by today’s Christian fundamentalist fanatics who want to turn it into a
Christian Army and therefore their own tool. It matters not if those who would
take over our military call themselves Christian, Jew, Muslim, or Devil
worshipers; what matters is that a democratic society cannot possibly hold onto
its freedoms under the guns of a militarized theocracy.
In conclusion, I cannot urge strongly enough - in fact I beg you - to help the Military
Religious Freedom Foundation to defeat the onslaught of
fundamentalist Christian theocratization of the Armed Forces of the United
States. If things continue to proceed as now, our military will all too easily
begin its descent into the American equivalent of the brown-shirted SA.
History has shown all too consistently the extreme danger that
religious militarism imposes upon secular democratic societies when those
societies cede their exclusive right to bear arms and enforce the law without
racial or religious prejudices. This time, please, let's not wait until it's
too late.
Most sincerely yours,
Walter Plywaski, previously Wladyslaw Plywacki
Formerly of Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz and Dachau
At the age of 80, my time on earth is limited and so I feel an
urgent need to share what is in my heart about the frightening and historically
similar conditions in today’s U.S. Military to those I had to live through
during the Holocaust. These ominous trends were brought to my attention by Mikey
Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). I
applaud Mikey’s tenacity and bravery in his efforts to expose the stealthy
fundamentalist takeover attempt of our armed forces, a strategy all too
reminiscent of what brought the end of my family’s life in pre-war Poland. If
there is one gift I can hope to leave my three daughters and five grandchildren,
it is that their father and grandfather, in joining forces with MRFF, did his
part in standing up to this clear and present danger...a danger which the
greater population sadly seems all too willing to ignore. My words are
motivated not only by a lifelong anger towards the perpetrators who annihilated
my family and my people, but also towards those who knowingly sat by and watched
the horrors of the Holocaust unfurl and did nothing to stop them. It is my
determined hope that when you help MRFF’s cause, neither my children nor
grandchildren will ever have to experience the things I went through during my
youth in the Nazi death and concentration camps.
America is
different from other nations thanks to our magnificent Constitution, which
specifically prohibits any sort of “religious test” for all Federal offices, and
that most certainly includes the military! Our founders understood the need for
a distinct separation between Church and State because of the things they had
witnessed in Europe and the new American colonies. As James Madison so often
and eloquently wrote, it is precisely the manifest separation of Church and
State that strengthens our citizens' most fundamental religious rights. In the
America to which I so gratefully immigrated, all religions were allowed to
flourish and NONE were permitted to be specifically, or even indirectly, favored
or "recommended by the state.” Personally, I have lived through the Inferno that
sprang up in a country that rejected such separation.
My
memories of the Holocaust remain all too vivid in my mind. The dark red and
black columns of flame and smoke that I saw upon my night-time arrival at
Auschwitz-Birkenau haunt my dreams even with the stench of burning human flesh
included. I remember not saying goodbye to my mother upon hearing the SS and
the Kapos, dogs at their side, command, "Men right! Women left!” My father had
previously explained to me that any woman with a child was as good as dead in
Auschwitz. I remember not being given a tattoo because, by the summer of 1944,
the Nazis no longer deemed it economically worth the ink; the average life
expectancy there being but two weeks by then.
Prior to
Auschwitz I spent 3 1/2 years in the Lódz ghetto, actually an urban
concentration-camp. In less than three years the Jewish population there went
from approximately 200,000 to no more than 30,000 by the time the ghetto was
being "liquidated" in June 1944. My family and I were among the last to give up
our hiding place on the edges of the ghetto when we surrendered to be
transported to Auschwitz in early August 1944.
Regardless of
the horrors of Auschwitz and other concentration camps that I lived through, I
still consider the Lodz Ghetto to have been the more emotionally difficult one
to live through. In the ghetto, we still lived in family units, visited
relatives and friends, and continued some social interactions with
acquaintances, even though we existed on 600 calories a day if we were lucky.
Deaths from tuberculosis, dysentery and typhus were daily occurrences as were
frequent, random German military shootings in the streets. Mothers were forced
to watch their children die of starvation and spouses watched each other starve.
I remember seeing the bodies of some of my school friends lying still on the
sidewalk. But at least in the ghetto, I could still feel. At least here, tears
still ran down our faces, we cried for our loved ones and felt sorrow for
strangers. Such personal grief disappeared completely in the concentration
camps.
After surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau for almost 6 weeks
(three average life expectancies for there!) my father, my brother, and I
managed to find our way onto a transport to the "work camps in Germany," a
statistical miracle, since the Birkenau regulations were that no one under the
age of fifteen was to leave alive. The next punishment we suffered for being
born of the ‘wrong’ religion consisted of stays in seven Dachau sub-camps (where
in one, Riederloh, my father was beaten to death with a shovel by the camp's
commandant in January, 1945). In the main Dachau-1 camp I narrowly escaped
death from becoming a guinea pig for malaria experiments.
After one unsuccessful escape attempt, my brother and
I finally managed to escape in mid-April 1945 from Dachau-2 (Karlsfeld), were
"captured" by an American infantry patrol and taken to their battalion field
headquarters. There a Polish-speaking sergeant from Chicago explained our
origins to the GIs and we were "issued" fatigue uniforms, making of us instant
micro GIs, or mascots of U.S. Army.
My brother came to United States in early 1946 while I
remained a U.S. Army mascot and civilian employee until the spring of 1947. I
had had a belly full of Europe by then and stowed away successfully from
Cherbourg, France, on a freighter headed for New York. After spending six months
on Ellis Island, I was eventually released and "legalized" by an Act of the
United States Congress “in recognition of my services to the U.S. Army in
Europe.” After President Truman signed this Act, I finally became a free man in
America. I volunteered for United States Air Force one year later, spending
about four years in the service during the Korean Conflict. After my honorable
discharge I embarked to pursue the American Dream. I am now retired after a
career in several private industry firms, extended civil service with NOAA and
eventually owning my own company in Boulder, Colorado. It should be clear to all
who read this why I love America.
The Plywacki family of Poland is no
more. Of the 200 members of my extended family only four survived the
de-Judaizing German rule in Poland. Of those four, only my brother William and I
remain alive. The other survivors were two maiden aunts who eluded the Germans
in Warsaw with falsified "Aryan" (i.e. Christian) identity papers. They were
ultimately denounced to the Gestapo for $20 by a bounty-hunter for hidden Jews.
Somehow they managed to survive many months of torture and died in Poland after
the war by 1963.
Like every society, the United States has its own
extreme fundamentalists and bigots, just as some dogs have fleas. Most
frighteningly, there has been a concerted drive to infiltrate the military by
these very fundamentalists who believe in the superiority of their very
dangerous brand of Christianity. It is a brand that, in its evangelism,
telegraphs a Crusader agenda abroad while attempting to coerce the rank and file
to adhere literally to their Bible. Just as in caring for your pet you would
immediately deal with the fleas, so too must we, as a society, stand firmly
behind the Constitution in ferreting out those who wish to eradicate the wall of
separation between Church and State.
If my words have convinced even
one of you to stand up and take note, then please give Mr. Weinstein all the
financial support you can, become his advocate with friends, neighbors and most
important of all, the media, then perhaps what I had to endure in my youth will
not have been in vain. I, who have seen the takeover of a country, and have
seen humans go mad with hatred and bloodlust, can only hope that Americans will
awaken to this danger and put an end to the usurpation of power in our military
by today’s Christian fundamentalist fanatics who want to turn it into a
Christian Army and therefore their own tool. It matters not if those who would
take over our military call themselves Christian, Jew, Muslim, or Devil
worshipers; what matters is that a democratic society cannot possibly hold onto
its freedoms under the guns of a militarized theocracy.
In conclusion, I cannot urge strongly enough - in fact I beg you - to help the Military
Religious Freedom Foundation to defeat the onslaught of
fundamentalist Christian theocratization of the Armed Forces of the United
States. If things continue to proceed as now, our military will all too easily
begin its descent into the American equivalent of the brown-shirted SA.
History has shown all too consistently the extreme danger that
religious militarism imposes upon secular democratic societies when those
societies cede their exclusive right to bear arms and enforce the law without
racial or religious prejudices. This time, please, let's not wait until it's
too late.
Most sincerely yours,
Walter Plywaski, previously Wladyslaw Plywacki
Formerly of Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz and Dachau
January 29, 1943
SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Karl Bischoff
Except for some minor construction work, Krematorium II was finished by
working with all our available forces day and night, despite inexpressible
difficulties and freezing weather. The ovens were fired in the presence of the
senior engineer Prüfer of the executing firm, Topf and Sons, Erfurt, and they
are working faultlessly. The reinforced concrete ceiling of the morgue could
not yet be eliminated due to the freezing weather. However, this is not
significant, as the gassing cellar can be used for this purpose.
Due to the railway car prohibition, the company Topf and Sons could not
deliver the aeration and deaeration equipment at the time demanded by the
Zentralbauleitung. After the aeration and deaeration equipment arrive, however,
installation will begin immediately, so that presumably by February 20, 1943,
it will be completely ready for operation.
Enclosed find a report of the inspecting engineer of the firm of Topf and Sons.
SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Karl Bischoff
Except for some minor construction work, Krematorium II was finished by
working with all our available forces day and night, despite inexpressible
difficulties and freezing weather. The ovens were fired in the presence of the
senior engineer Prüfer of the executing firm, Topf and Sons, Erfurt, and they
are working faultlessly. The reinforced concrete ceiling of the morgue could
not yet be eliminated due to the freezing weather. However, this is not
significant, as the gassing cellar can be used for this purpose.
Due to the railway car prohibition, the company Topf and Sons could not
deliver the aeration and deaeration equipment at the time demanded by the
Zentralbauleitung. After the aeration and deaeration equipment arrive, however,
installation will begin immediately, so that presumably by February 20, 1943,
it will be completely ready for operation.
Enclosed find a report of the inspecting engineer of the firm of Topf and Sons.
Sachsenburg Mail:
Every prisoner is allowed to receive once a week, a letter
or a postcard from his relatives. Post which is not according these
instructions will not be handed over. Twice a month the prisoner may receive a
parcel with clothes. If the parcels contain food, alcoholics, tobacco or other
objects they will be confiscated. The sender has a claim for indemnification.
National-socialist newspapers are allowed, if these are sent under tape
directly to the camp commander with the aim of delivering.
Every prisoner is allowed to receive once a week, a letter
or a postcard from his relatives. Post which is not according these
instructions will not be handed over. Twice a month the prisoner may receive a
parcel with clothes. If the parcels contain food, alcoholics, tobacco or other
objects they will be confiscated. The sender has a claim for indemnification.
National-socialist newspapers are allowed, if these are sent under tape
directly to the camp commander with the aim of delivering.