Rare first edition of a short autobiographical text in which Biermann recalls his gruesome experiences in three Nazi concentration camps.
 
Biermann (1901–1981), a high school teacher from Luxembourg, was active in the resistance in Trier, where he helped several Jews escape Nazi Germany. The Gestapo arrested him in Trier in 1942. He was subsequently incarcerated as a political prisoner in Hinzert concentration camp. In the summer of 1943, he was transported to the German camp Natzweiler. "What we saw there is so horrific that it is almost impossible to describe" ( “Was wir da sahen, ist so schrecklich, dass man es kaum wiedergeben kann”), as he states on p. 19.
 
His last destination was Buchenwald, where Biermann was active in the resistance. Together with many others, he helped to hide Jews who were sent on death marches. Yet, thousands of others were forcefully evacuated by walking. In the final days before the liberation of the camp, the Nazis planned to obliterate it. However, the commander tasked with this assignment fled, saving the lives of 21,000 inmates.
 
“Biermann beschreibt die Erlebnisse sehr drastisch”, as noted by the Arbeitsstelle Holocaustliteratur.

Biermann was a pacifist and anti-fascist author who wrote several books on pedagogy and cultural history, including Profangeschichte des Judentums. Ein Beitrag zur Überwindung des Rassenwahns und des Antisemitismus (1978).
 
The present memoir includes three pages of publisher's adverts, one of which announces a book to be published in May 1945. This indicates that it must have been issued before May 1945, just weeks after the liberation of Buchenwald.
 
The Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg holds three copies. WorldCat lists only two copies (erroneously dated "[1950]"). One is held at the Nationalbibliothek in Leipzig, with the remark “Exemplar nicht verfügbar” (“copy not available”). Digital reproductions of this copy are available in both Frankfurt and Leipzig. The second copy, held at the Württembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart, is described as a “Fotokop[ie].”
 
Cheaply produced, typical of post-war publications, it is no surprise that so few copies of this fragile little book have survived.